


Men in Stiff Procession

by vain_glorious



Series: Marching Away in Stiff Procession [2]
Category: SGA/SG-1
Genre: Conspiracy, Friendship, Gen, Missing in Action
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-09
Updated: 2013-07-09
Packaged: 2017-12-18 06:08:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/876505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vain_glorious/pseuds/vain_glorious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A new military commander, Cameron Mitchell, arrives on Atlantis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A sequel of sorts to [Marching Away and Softly Gone](http://vain-glorious.livejournal.com/23294.html), but also can stand alone.

“You sure you don’t want me to come along?” Sam Carter asked again. She was smiling, but she also looked kind of worried.

Cameron Mitchell frowned. “I don’t need a chaperone, Sam. Military officers transfer roles every day all over the world without any kind of handholding.”

They were sitting on the bed in Cam’s quarters – the place he crashed when too tired to leave the base – in the SGC. Or what used to be his quarters – he’d cleaned out all the crap he’d accumulated and it was just empty staff housing now – since he wouldn’t be back anytime soon.

“This isn’t the world,” she reminded him. “This is Pegasus. And it’s not just the military.”

“I know that.”

Sam didn’t say anything, but she did make a face. A cross between a grin and a wince.

“You’re saying the civilians don’t handle change well?”

“I’m saying I don’t care how many mission reports you read, Atlantis isn’t going to be…”

“Easy?”

“No.” She paused. “It’s not going to be anything like what you expect. I know it wasn’t for me.”

“I’m not taking over the city,” Cameron said. “Just the military.”

“They’re remarkably intertwined.” She took a deep breath. “Especially if you…get his team.”

“It’s tempting to bring you along solely to occupy McKay,” Cam joked.

In response, Sam just looked at him. “It’s not like SG-1,” she said. “I’m not talking about the personalities…”

“There’s only one of you, Sam. And one of Jackson, and one of Teal’c. And there sure as hell better be only one Vala.”

Sam laughed.

“I do have some experience with this,” Cam said, poking her playfully in the shoulder. “You weren’t the most cooperative bunch when I came around, remember?”

“Yeah.” The smile slowly dropped of her face. “But we also weren’t grieving.”

Cameron sighed. “Yeah,” he said. “I know.”

Sam reached out and squeezed his arm. “Just try to remember that no matter how excited you are, they’re probably going to be pissed off and resentful that you’re there. Because you being there means he’s gone.”

For a second, Cam squinted at her. “You feel that way about me when I replaced O’Neill?”

Sam tilted her head. “I could call Jack on the phone.”

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s different, I know.”

She nodded.

“Any other advice?” He paused. “About the team in particular?”

Now, Sam shrugged. “I was a little surprised to hear it’s still intact, actually.”

“Yeah?”

“Um, Ronon Dex wasn’t particularly attached to Atlantis, I don’t think,” Sam said. “He was loyal to Sheppard, not the IOA.”

“Don’t blame him,” Cam said, chuckling. Sam glanced at him, her expression serious. “Noted," he said.

“And Teyla Emmagan has a young baby,” she continued. “I don’t know how interested she’d been in…”

“Serving under me?”

“Adjusting,” Sam decided upon. “And that leaves-”

“McKay.”

“Yeah.” She was making another face.

“He’s going to make my life a living hell?”

“Going to be a tough sell?” Sam said, optimistically. “He and Sheppard are – were – really good friends. He’s going through a tough time.”

“You talked to him at all?”

“A little.” Sam looked guilty. “He’s not the easiest person to listen to when he’s upset. We exchanged a couple of e-mails where he ranted about them stopping the search.”

“Okay.” Cam nodded. He wasn’t a huge fan of McKay, but losing your CO sucked and the men had been friends, too. That tugged on anyone’s heartstrings, even if McKay had probably chosen to be a giant asshole about it.

Colonel Stephen Caldwell’s voice rang in Cameron’s ear. He raised his fingers to the earpiece. Sam had suggested he start wearing it already and get used to it, or he’d end up wanting to take it out. Apparently that was never a good idea.

“My ride’s here,” he said to Sam.

“Alright.” They rose together and Sam leaned in and hugged him tightly. “Goodbye,” she said, giving him a peck in his hair. “Good luck. Don’t get eaten by a Wraith.”

“Bye,” he said, starting to laugh at that last part, except she sounded awfully serious.

The Daedalus’s beam seized him the second Sam pulled away from the embrace. The room melted around him and then it was gone.

~

Cam used the three week journey on board the Daedalus to read up on the Atlantis mission. He’d already read every mission report John Sheppard had ever written, first. Just like he’d read every one filed by General O’Neill before taking over SG-1. There was a little déjà vu, in that both were about missions fighting really scary evil monsters (the Goa’uld and the Wraith, respectively) and that both O’Neill and Sheppard had very similar esoteric writing styles such that they managed not to say much despite filling hundreds and hundreds of pages.

With O’Neill, that had meant certain surprises about the actual way SG-1 had resolved various crises versus the action the SGC or IOA would have authorized. He’d only met Sheppard a few times, but Cameron assumed that’d also be the case on Atlantis, perhaps more so since the light years of distance would presumably only encourage even more creative decision-making. As long as he knew that going in, Cam figured he’d be prepared for most of it.

Cam had also read the mission reports of the late Aiden Ford. Ford’s were a little more informative, but they were also the oldest and the most out of date. Rodney McKay and Teyla Emmagan had written mission reports basically since the beginning, too, but Ronon Dex had never submitted any kind of paperwork. Cam was shocked the IOA – including Sam – let him get away with that. Cameron found it annoying, an enormous blind spot in his research on Atlantis and the crew he’d be commanding. It did tell him a little about Dex’s personality, though. The guy wasn’t all that interested in protocol and his superiors had either never tried to force him to follow it or they had, unsuccessfully.

McKay and Emmagan were considerably more verbose than their team leader. But their reports weren’t military at all and McKay babbled worse than Jackson. Cam hadn’t been sure that was possible. If he was honest, Cameron was the least excited about dealing with McKay. It was probably entirely selfish, since even Sam acknowledged how vital the man’s presence was for the city’s survival. But McKay was abrasive to begin with and who knew how much worse he’d be in the aftermath of Sheppard’s death.

Sheppard’s death changed things. When Cam had reunited SG-1, it’d been under the watchful if distant eye of its former commander. General O’Neill had never interfered or even commented his approval or disapproval, but Cam figured if he’d ever done something drastically wrong, O’Neill would have been on it. And at the same time, Cameron had been conscious of that surveillance, of wanting to protect and sustain SG-1’s reputation and O’Neill’s legacy. He’d deliberately put SG-1 back together but he’d tried to do it right. Vala kind of put a hitch in that, but she had ultimately fit right in.Something about being bugfuck crazy.

Cam wasn’t sure he felt the same need to keep Sheppard’s team intact. In part, he wasn’t sure he had the option. Sam had said as much. The reports painted a picture of a team that had been built around a dead man. Dex’s loyalty was to Sheppard, not Atlantis. Sheppard had somehow turned McKay into a team player. He’d recruited the Athosian woman, Emmagan.

McKay and Emmagan were too valuable to lose. If Cameron truly couldn’t stand McKay – and perhaps he was exaggerating how irritating the man could be, but he didn’t think so –then there were options. Civilian scientists, particularly ones largely responsible for keeping the city functioning day to day, didn’t need to be on reconnaissance teams.Cam could just politely bench McKay and leave him in the lab. If Emmagan didn’t want to serve under him, she could stay around the city with her family and continue to act as a consultant.

Cam did feel a little bad, thinking about dismantling Sheppard’s team. The man was dead, after all, and it felt sort of like trashing his estate. That wasn’t his intention, at all, but Cam still resolved to give the way it was a try before he made any big decisions. It seemed like the right thing to do.

At the same time, Cameron was painfully conscious of how little space he had to go wrong. Making mistakes in Pegasus tended to be deadly.

Sheppard’s death, perhaps, proved that. But that hadn’t been a mistake so much as a sacrifice. Cam didn’t know the full details – the massive report about the man’s last mission somehow managed to be scarce on those. All he knew was a group of Pegasus natives who blamed their suffering on the Atlantis mission had put Sheppard’s team on trial. Given that the judges had generated the charges, the verdict was known from the beginning. Richard Woolsey had tried to fix it in Atlantis’ favor.

It was supposed to have worked, except that Sheppard’s team came back to Atlantis without its leader.

Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard’s final days were still a mystery. He’d been sent through the ‘Gate to an uninhabited planet without a DHD, or so his captors claimed. Cam wasn’t sure he believed that. It was too detached. For how angry these natives had been and for what they’d blamed on him…it was a much too impersonal murder.

It seemed to him like a weak excuse, a way of protecting themselves from military reprisal from Atlantis. Like all would be forgiven just because they hadn’t killed the man directly.

  
And it probably seemed to have worked out for them. There would be no military reprisal, not because the city of Atlantis forgave them of Sheppard’s murder, but because the IOA wouldn’t authorize it and the interim military leader – Sheppard’s second Major Evan Lorne – wouldn’t defy that as much as he might have wanted to.

The natives got away with it. Woolsey claimed to have enacted harsh diplomatic measures, all of which read as hollow and empty because they followed the declaration of John Sheppard as missing in action and presumed dead.

Lorne had remained interim commander of Atlantis for nearly nine months. They’d searched for Sheppard during that time, until the IOA had interceded and declared those search and rescue (if he was alive) or recovery (if he was dead) missions were a waste of time and money.Cameron was really, really glad he hadn’t been the one to deliver that message. He understood it, agreed with it, even, but was still glad he was arriving months later.

The IOA had replaced Lorne, then. Maybe sensing an unwillingness to obey that particular order. Or, equally likely, using the opportunity to install a friendlier and more obedient face as the head of the Atlantis military rather than promote from within the existing ranks.

Cam had never met the guy they’d picked. Heard of him – Roger something or something Rogers –particularly the persistent rumors that despite no evidence, the new military head was somehow related to one of the IOA bigwigs and his appointment was nepotism in action.

Cam would never meet the guy. He’d lasted about three months, before dying at the hands of those nasty Pegasus things. Wraith. Practically, Cameron knew what the Wraith were (he’d read about them, too, oh yeah), but the fact that was “Wraith-sucked” was actually a semi-official clinical description made his gut clench.

He’d heard other rumors about the guy. That’d he been incompetent and totally out of his element in the job. That no one had liked him. That it was entirely possible that he’d been _fragged._

No proof, nothing but whispers mostly from the Daedalus crew, who enjoyed gossiping like they were teenage girls trapped in space. People who hadn’t been there, just delivered the guy to the city about three months ago. They were picking up his body, now, after depositing Cameron on Atlantis.

That tempered Cam’s excitement. It wasn’t just a new post, wasn’t just a new command. He was replacing two dead men. He’d like to avoid joining them. And he refused on principle to believe that the military of Atlantis would deliberately feed a man to the Wraith.

The reports from the past three months weren’t all that different from the earlier ones. Except that the city was no longer searching for John Sheppard. The mission reports were just a little more chaotic. It was hidden in military jargon, but perceptible if you knew what to look for. There were loads of requests to resume the search for Sheppard, mostly from Rodney McKay and all refused by the IOA. There were dozens more that hadn’t even made to the IOA. Whatever his other failings, the late military commander had known to filter out the rudest ones. Most of which were also from McKay.

The troops on Atlantis needed some stability and leadership, that much was evident. The fact that Cam was supposed to provide those things was a little intimidating. As recently as a couple of years ago, Cam wasn’t sure he’d have been up to the task. But the Air Force thought he was, now, so he’d have to be.

Cameron’s self-confidence took a blow about that fact, just a few days before the Daedalus reached Atlantis. He was having coffee in the Mess with the commander of the Daedalus, Colonel Stephen Caldwell. Cam hadn’t seen much of Caldwell during the month long trip, sort of on purpose. He hadn’t exactly been avoiding the man, but he’d known that Caldwell had at one time wanted the post at Atlantis himself. It struck him as a little awkward that Caldwell had now had to see three other men fill that slot, delivering two of them personally.

Caldwell probably figured out Cam’s thoughts, because he let Cam stew on how to acknowledge the situation without looking like he was apologizing for it. And then when Cameron tried – badly – Caldwell promptly corrected him.

“They offered me Atlantis,” Caldwell interrupted Cam’s stuttering.

Cam managed not to choke. “What?” he asked.

“They offered me your new position,” Caldwell said, flatly.“The IOA.”

“Oh.” Cam took a swig of his coffee, trying to process that statement. It came totally out of the blue. “Um,” he began.

“I turned it down,” Caldwell continued. “I suggested you.”

“What?” Cameron could only stare at him. “ _Why?_ ”

Caldwell shrugged. He leaned back in his chair, the tiniest of smirks twitching on his lips. Cam must have looked totally shell-shocked.

“I like my ship,” Caldwell said. “I like my command and I like my crew. I don’t feel any need to leave.”

For a second, Cam just blinked at him. He tried to ignore the vague _second best_ feeling stinging in his chest.

“I know it’s Atlantis,” Caldwell said, knowingly. “But this is the _Daedalus_.” He glanced around the dimly lit mess. “And it’s mine.”

“It’s a great ship,” Cameron said, striving to sound respectful and not totally pissed off.

Caldwell seemed to understand him. “I recommended you,” he went on, “because I’d like to stay here.” He looked at Cam, pointedly.

Cam stared back at him, waiting for him say something else. When he didn’t, Cameron leaned forward. “I’m not following,” he confessed.

“I don’t want Atlantis to lose its third military commander in barely over a year,” Caldwell snapped. “Mitchell, I don’t want to pick up another coffin. If you can’t hack it, I’m next in line.”

The stinging turned into a flash of anger. “So if I die – ”

Caldwell nodded. “Yeah.”

Cameron took an irritated sip of his coffee. “Well, that’s not the plan,” he muttered.

“Nor is it mine,” Caldwell reminded him. “I recommended you because I think you can stay alive.” He paused, looked a little uncomfortable. “And your command style may be better suited to the troops currently stationed there than my own.” That sounded like a confession.

  
“Yeah?”

Caldwell grimaced. “I think you share more personality traits with the late Colonel Sheppard than I do.”

“That doesn’t sound like a compliment,” Cam accused, half-serious.

Caldwell shrugged. “He lasted,” he said, then glanced down at the table top. “For a while, anyway,” softer. Caldwell looked back up. “I’m perfectly willing to dismantle the Atlantis military and rebuild it to my liking,” he said, flatly. “But I’d prefer not to. Those people have been through enough trauma recently.” He paused and made a face. “And there are civilians.”

“Yeah,” Cam said. “So you think I can last?”

Caldwell picked up his coffee cup and looked at Cameron over the brim. “I wouldn’t have recommended you if I didn’t. I meant what I said. I want to stay on my ship and that means…”

“I have to stay alive.”

~

Cameron’s arrival on Atlantis was actually pretty anti-climactic. He put on his dress blues and reported to the Bridge. And then he was beamed down off the Daedalus with little more than a pointed look from Caldwell. The man had said all that was necessary.

His welcome to the city below was a bit more ceremonial. Major Evan Lorne had assembled the troops for his review, every squad in uniform and lined up in some massive, empty room where they all fit. It was perfectly orchestrated, every soldier’s shoes shined and every step in synch.

At first, Cam was almost overwhelmed by the spectacle. He drew his shoulders back and kept his spine as straight as the men’s marching before him. As much baggage as had lead to this moment, it didn’t change how amazing it was.

But that was all it took for him remember that one reason the parade before him was so perfectly choreographed was the men had had to do it before, not so long ago, for a different commander.

That thought sobered him.

When the last pair of boots had marched into position, Cameron took his place at the front of the room. Lorne stood stiffly at his side.

The speech Cam had prepared said all the right things, or so he hoped. He acknowledged the recent upheaval in the city without dwelling on the fact that they’d lost two commanders in the past year. He tried to give John Sheppard the deference he deserved, while neatly – but not presumptuously – inserting himself into the man’s empty shoes. At the same time, Cameron tried not to remind them of the immediate failure of Sheppard’s replacement, while still making it very clear that he had absolutely no intention of taking that route himself.

It was a hard balance to hit and Cam had no idea how successful he was. The soldiers’ faces were impassive, of course. And it wasn’t like they’d tell him here and now if they already thought he sucked.

~

It would have been really easy to stay entranced by the glittering city, to be completely distracted from the mundane realities of dealing with the people who actually lived there. Cam had been to Atlantis before, but he’d never looked at it in this way before. It’d never been _his_ city before.

Richard Woolsey immediately yanked Cameron back down from orbit, though. For the better, probably, but it didn’t change the fact that it hadn’t even been a month since he’d gotten this assignment and whenever he started reveling in it, someone forcibly reminded Cam just how complicated and hard it was supposed to be. It sucked, just a little.

He went with Woolsey to the man’s office, which had an amazing view out on to the ocean and some of the city. Cam didn’t get to look at it for long.

  
“Welcome,” Woolsey said, pouring Cameron a drink without asking.

“Thanks,” Cam said, eyes still on the view beyond the window. “This is a hell of a city.”

“Your office will be ready shortly,” Woolsey said. He coughed pointedly, and Cam remembered abruptly that the reason it wasn’t ready now was that the Daedalus had to beam up the possessions of the dead man who had occupied it last.

“No hurry,” Cameron said, cheerfully. “I don’t intend to spend much time there, anyways.”

Woolsey gave a faint smile. “I didn’t expect so.” He paused, looked uncertain if he should continue, then did. “I spoke with Colonel Carter,” he confessed. “She said not to plan on you having any more interest in paperwork than…your predecessors.” And that was a very deliberate choice not to name either of them.

Cam grimaced and picked up the glass Woolsey had poured for him. “It’s been a rough year,” he said. “For Atlantis.”

Woolsey nodded, drummed his fingers on the desktop. “I’m glad you realize that,” he said, slowly. He heaved a deep breath. “The anniversary of Colonel Sheppard’s disappearance was only two months ago. And we lost the last military commander a few weeks later.”

“And now here I come,” Cam observed. “Everyone must be so excited.” He took a sip of his drink, tried to swallow it smoothly.

“I’m excited,” Woolsey said, dryly, “that I’m assured you’re –”

“Not another incompetent IOA lapdog?” Cam interjected.

Woolsey looked annoyed. “I did not say that,” he replied. “But Colonel Carter had high praise for you.”

Cameron grinned. “Good to hear.” He paused. “Surprised she talked to you, though.”

“I replaced her, Colonel Mitchell,” Woolsey said. “I did not make the decision to remove her. She knows that. We’ve actually talked quite frequently over my tenure here. It’s been very helpful.”

“Good to have background,” Cameron agreed, and then immediately snapped his teeth shut because he’d just reminded them both that he, in fact, couldn’t talk to his predecessors.

Woolsey grimaced. “She has the best interests of Atlantis at heart,” he went on, “I know she wouldn’t want someone in your role she didn’t trust.”

“I’ve done a lot of reading up on it,” Cam said, lamely.

“Yes,” Woolsey said, nodding. “She did mention you enjoyed reading, er, memorizing, mission reports.”

  
“She also said that it wouldn’t really prepare me for actually being here,” Cameron offered. “So, I got that going for me.”

“It helps more than not,” Woolsey assured him.

Cam shrugged. “I didn’t see any civilians,” he said, moving on. “At my arrival this afternoon. I know they’re not under my command, but…”

“I’ve scheduled a departmental head meeting for tomorrow,” Woolsey interrupted. “To get you up to speed. I assume you’ll eventually want a tour of all the departments and that can be arranged, as well.”

“Okay,” Cam said, glad to be on the same page. “Sounds good.” Woolsey was making a strange face. “What?”

“I’ve asked the civilians to –“ he paused and scowled –“I’ve requested that they act with consideration and optimism during this very challenging time –”

“And not take bets on how long I’m going to last?” Cameron suggested.

“I didn’t say that in particular.” Woolsey’s frown deepened. “Perhaps I should have.”

“I get the drift,” Cam said. “Thanks for the warning.”

“I did ask them to behave,” Woolsey continued. “But there’s no guarantee.”

“Got it,” Cam said. “I got a thick skin.”

Woolsey nodded. “Good.”

“I didn’t see our Pegasus allies this afternoon, either,” Cameron said, moving on to his second question. Woolsey looked at him blankly. “Teyla Emmagan and Ronon Dex,” he clarified.

“Ah.” Woolsey’s brow creased. “I don’t think they knew you expected their presence. Teyla was probably with her family.”

“And Dex?”

Woolsey shrugged. “I don’t know.” It sounded genuine, but at the same time a very odd expression had taken over the man’s face.

“It was my impression that Dex has taken on a de facto military role,” Cam probed.

“That’s correct,” Woolsey said, quickly. “But-”

“Not the parade type?” Cameron guessed.

Woolsey nodded, but his eyes were scanning the room and refusing to meet Cam’s gaze. “I’m glad you understand that, too.”

“I think we can be friends,” Cam said, confidently.

Woolsey didn’t say anything, just nodded with that odd, uncertain expression on his face.

“I’ll track him down,” Cameron continued.

“After the staff meeting,” Woolsey suggested.

Cam shrugged. “Okay.”

“You’ll want to get settled,” Woolsey said, standing. “And unpack.”

Cameron rose as well. “Alright. But I don’t know where my quarters are.”

“I’ll show you,” he said. “Don’t worry, it can take some time to orient yourself to the city and figure out how simple things like the doors work.”

“I don’t think Sam conveyed just how much I like to read,” Cam said, mildly. “I’m good on that.”

“Yes, well,” Woolsey replied. “It’s different being here. Follow me to the transporter?”

Cam did, and they walked together down the corridor.

“I’m not in Colonel Sheppard’s old quarters, am I?” he asked, once they were inside the transporter.

“No,” Woolsey said, shaking his head. “That wouldn’t be for the best.”

“Good,” Cameron said. “Fresh start. I like it.”

It didn’t take Cam long to unpack his baggage. He hadn’t brought much, warned by Sam that the living quarters on Atlantis ran on the small side. She hadn’t been kidding. The bed was tiny, too. He slapped a framed photo of his parents on the bookshelf, put a photo of SG-1 next to it. There hadn’t been many decent team photos. This one happened to have Vala goosing Daniel out of frame, so everyone in it who wasn’t Daniel was laughing. Cam had chosen it both for the emotional pickup and because he liked that however he might idealize his memories of SG-1, it would serve as a reminder that more often than not, he was the one getting goosed by things far more malevolent than Vala.

Cam stayed up late that night, not tired at all. He didn’t even leave his quarters, just sat on his bed and looked out the window, watching the sun set and then the stars glitter at their reflections in the waters surrounding his new home.

~

Woolsey hadn’t been entirely wrong when he’d said the city took some figuring out. Cam had some trouble locating the cafeteria in the morning, despite having memorized the city’s blueprints. Woolsey also wasn’t wrong that the doors were a little tricky, but Cameron didn’t feel the need to share that fact with him.

It was a bit awkward getting breakfast. This was why he’d wanted to meet the civilians as soon as possible. Half the people in the mess were scientists who hadn’t seen him yet. They probably had to figure out who he was just based on having never seen him before. The population of Atlantis was limited enough that he guessed one new face would definitely stand out.

Their reactions, oddly enough, were mostly limited to blinking at him in confusion and then completely ignoring him. Some of the soldiers who had met him yesterday nodded or jerked to attention, but he waved them down.

Cameron sighed, again reminding himself that due to no fault of his own, it was going to take some work to win these people over. He had to prove that he wasn’t an incompetent IOA stooge and that he wasn’t going to up and die on them. Both of which, hopefully, wouldn’t be that hard.

Quickly, Cam tried to identify a familiar breakfast food and get out of there. He found something that looked like oatmeal – though it turned out to taste more like scrambled eggs, bizzarely – and ate by himself. No one joined him at the table. He didn’t take it personally. Well, he tried not to.

The departmental head meeting came next. It was, well, frankly the exact opposite of the military presentation. Cameron knew the scientists weren’t going to march around in perfect timing and salute him, but still. The meeting was in the debriefing room, a dozen or scientists seated around the table.

It was really boring.

Cam knew, practically-speaking, that these people were working on interesting, exciting, and important topics.But he’d spent enough time around Carter and Jackson to also know that they’d probably be totally incapable of communicating the bits he would actually care about. To their credit, each department head did try to limit their scientific babble to subjects that had real or theoretical application to the Atlantis military or at least to reconnaissance mission security. Kind of a stretch for Botany and Entomology.Except for those Iratus bug things, ugh.

It was still really boring.

  
Cameron may have tuned out at some point, around the same time he realized that Rodney McKay wasn’t in the room. He scanned the scientists’ faces around the table, was puzzled when he couldn’t find the man.

McKay’s official title was Chief Scientific Advisor or something; he should have been there.

A scruffy foreign-accented little man calling himself Dr. Radek Zelenka said he was representing the Science head, which sounded a lot like McKay’s job. Cam let him babble about more technical stuff he didn’t understand, then interrupted.

“Where’s Rodney McKay?” he asked Woolsey.

“Dr. Zelenka reported for that department,” Woolsey replied, which really wasn’t much of an answer.

Cameron looked to Zelenka. “Where’s your boss?”

“My boss?” Zelenka scowled, clearly not pleased with that description.

“Yeah,” Cam said. “McKay.”

“He is doing project,” Zelenka said, shifting in his seat.

“Couldn’t be bothered to show up?” Cam translated, irritated. McKay was managing to annoy him before they’d even officially met.

“No,” Zelenka said, quickly. “He is busy. You came before project finished.” And that was also not really an answer.

“The Daedalus arrived a few days earlier than expected,” Woolsey spoke up. “I’m sure Dr. McKay intended to be available.”

“Uh-huh,” Cameron muttered, doubtfully. He glanced at Zelenka, found the other man unwilling to return his gaze. The little guy was looking at the table top like it was fascinating. “I’ll just have to go introduce myself personally,” he said.

“You cannot,” Zelenka replied, hands fidgeting. “He is in, erm, time-controlled experiment in secure laboratory.”

Cam blinked. “Doing what?” he tested.

Zelenka stared back at him, looking somewhere past Cameron’s head. “Assessing alien substance for energy properties,” he said, which sounded like the same kind of babble he’d already presented.

“Oh,” Cam said, deciding that if McKay really wanted to put this much effort into avoiding him, Cameron would just have to go force the issue. “Well, thanks for coming on his behalf. Let me know when he’s available.”

Zelenka nodded. “Of course.” He scratched at his head.

Cam stayed seated at the table with Woolsey while the scientists gathered their papers and left.

“McKay must be super excited about me,” he muttered to Woolsey.

Woolsey shrugged. “More likely he doesn’t actually care,” he offered, like that was better.

Cameron scowled.

“Next on the agenda is a tour of the city,” Woolsey said. “Ready?”

~

Cam’s tour guide was someone he’d been wanting to meet, the Athosian Teyla Emmagan. He’d probably met her when SG-1 had visited Atlantis a couple years ago, but he didn’t remember. There’d been other stuff on his mind. For some reason, he’d expected her to be taller. Emmagan was small in stature, petite even. He’d imagined the woman in the reports was taller and bigger. Emmagan definitely didn’t look like she could kick his ass, but Sam had warned him that she totally _could_.

Emmagan was polite and friendly, pretty much the warmest person he’d met so far. That didn’t take much, but Cam instantly liked her. She didn’t have the baby with her, but Cam remembered from the files and conversations with Sam that Emmagan had a son and a husband-type person. He thought that was a shame. She was really nice. And pretty.

Woolsey left them alone, heading back to his office.

“What would you like to see first, Colonel Mitchell?” Emmagan asked him, smiling.

“Cameron,” he corrected. “Call me Cam.”

Emmagan inclined her head, but he noticed she didn’t offer him the same familiarity. Maybe she wasn’t that friendly.“Very well,” she said. “What would you like to see first, Cameron?”

He shrugged. “Everything?”

She started to walk and he moved to match her stride. “That will take some time,” Emmagan said.

“I got time,” he answered. “Why don’t you show me what you think I should see?”

Emmagan was a pretty good tour guide. She knew a lot about the city, having been here since nearly day one. He was a little surprised by how much she seemed to know about the Ancient technology, especially since a lot of what he’d read had suggested that most Pegasus natives had been kept in Stone Age living conditions thanks to the Wraith.

Cameron tried to pay attention to her monologue as they walked, but he was also contemplating how he should introduce the fact that he wanted her on his reconnaissance team. It seemed rude, somehow, to flat out state he wanted to take over Sheppard’s team. But he didn’t want to pretend it’d never existed. Cam frowned, wondering if every decision he make he was going to be haunted by that man’s ghost.

Emmagan noticed the expression on his face.

“Do you have a question?” she asked.

“Huh? No.” He paused, then went on, sort of blindly. “I appreciate the tour. I’m glad you were willing to meet with me.”

“Of course. Why would I not be?” She looked genuinely confused.

“I know it’s been a…transitional time,” Cameron offered, but that made her frown. “Rough,” he amended. “No one seems too thrilled to have a new military commander in town.”

“Yes,” Emmagan agreed, so quickly he almost wished for platitudes instead. “But it is not personal.”

Cam grimaced. He decided to just go for it. “Would you be interested in resuming your position on a ‘Gate team?” he asked.

Emmagan looked at him like she hadn’t quite understood the question. “You intend to form a team?” she asked, which was kind of strange. Of course he did.

“Yeah,” Cameron said. “I’m not a desk kind of guy.”

“Oh,” she said, the curious expression still on her face. She was fiddling with her hair, tucked around the earpiece worn on there.

He didn’t understand her confusion, but went on anyway. “Would you be willing to serve on my team?”

Emmagan continued to look at him oddly, still fidgeting with her earpiece. “I would,” she said, after a small hesitation. “That would be acceptable.”

At this point, he’d expected her to say no. He was surprised she’d agreed. “Okay,” he said. “Great.”

Emmagan smiled at him, but she still seemed distracted.

“Someone on your earpiece?” Cameron guessed.

She shook her head, immediately dropped her hand from the side of her face. “No,” Emmagan said, clearly lying. She saw him tilt his head and amended, “My teammates were talking to each other on our channel. It was distracting.”

“Your teammates,” Cam said. Dex and McKay. “I’d like to meet them, as well.”

“Of course.”

“McKay is hiding from me,” he told her.

“He is working,” she shot back, quickly.  
  
Cam made a mental note to temper his attitude towards McKay. “What have you three been up to, recently?” he asked, changing the subject.

If Emmagan noticed he neatly avoiding tacking on ‘since Sheppard died’ to his question, she didn’t show it. “I have been spending time with my family,” she said. “I have a child.”

Cameron nodded. “I know.”

  
“Rodney has been working in his lab,” she continued. “And Ronon has been going on pilgrimages.”

  
He blinked at her. “Pilgrimages?”

Emmagan looked at him and nodded. “He has taken this time to undertake many rituals of his people,” she said.

“He didn’t strike me as the religious type,” Cam said, honestly.

Her eyes forward, Emmagan shrugged. “He is quite spiritual,” she said, but Cam wasn’t sure it sounded entirely genuine. She paused. “You have not met him, yet,” she reminded him.

“No,” he said. “But I read a lot about him.”

Now, she glanced at him. “Did you also read about me?”

“I did.”

“What did you think?” she asked, curious.

“That you were a valuable team member and I wanted you on mine,” Cameron said, honestly.

Emmagan dipped her head, smiled.

“Speaking of which,” Cameron said, abruptly remembering. “I’m supposed to hit up the infirmary.”

“Are you ill, Colonel Mitchell?” Emmagan asked.

“Nope.” He slapped his arm. “I need one of those tracker things so I can leave the city. And we’re gonna try and see if the ATA-gene therapy will work on me.”

“You do not have the gene?” she asked.

  
“Not yet,” he said, hopefully. “Let’s find the nearest transporter?” He stopped, expecting to backtrack. They’d passed one only a few minutes ago.

  
Instead, Emmagan pointed ahead. “This way,” she said.

It seemed to Cameron that they had to walk a lot farther to get to the transporter she had in mind, instead of reversing to the one they’d just passed. And then, once in the transporter, she hit keys that would bring the lift the wrong direction.

“Hey,” he said, stopping her hand. “Up, right?”

“Ah, yes,” Emmagan said. “I am mistaken.”

He blinked at her, a little confused.

“It is a large city,” she said, correcting the key strokes.

And it was, but Woolsey had elected her to show him around and she clearly knew it well. For no reason at all, Cameron was abruptly suspicious. He looked at her, but she only smiled.

“You are learning your way around very quickly,” Emmagan said. “I am impressed.

Cameron didn’t think she was impressed. The compliment felt fake and forced. Like something had just happened to throw off the nice, friendly vibe they’d had going all of half an hour ago. He wondered what her teammates had said into her ear, exactly.

~


	2. Men in Stiff Procession Part 2

Emmagan should have wished him good luck with the ATA-gene therapy and left him at the infirmary entrance. Instead, she followed him inside. That was weird.

She tried to act like it was still part of the tour, but there really wasn’t much to say about the infirmary.

“You have not met the medical staff?” she asked, eyes a little too wide and tone a little too perky.

“Nope,” Cam answered, following her gaze, but still at a loss of what had changed her behavior.  
  
“They are excellent,” Emmagan said, cheerily.

“I’m hoping not to spend too much time in here,” he replied, letting a note of irritation enter his voice.  
  
Emmagan ignored it. She didn’t leave his side even as a medical staff member finally noticed they were there and went over to greet them. A young blonde woman came rushing out of the rear of the infirmary, scrubs splattered in something brownish. It wasn’t blood. Cam hoped it wasn’t shit.

“This is Colonel Cameron Mitchell,” Teyla said, a little louder than totally necessary. “He is the new military commander.”

“That’s me,” Cam muttered.

“Dr. Jennifer Keller,” the woman replied.

Cam stuck out his hand, but Keller held her palms up. “I have to wash my hands,” she said. “Don’t touch me.”

“Okay,” Cam said, slowly. He looked down at the gunk on her scrubs. “What is that stuff?”

“I’m not entirely sure,” Keller began. She rolled her eyes. “But it might be a human allergen, so…”

“Where’s it from?” Cam asked, taking a tiny step back. He knew this place had to have excellent biohazard and quarantine protocols, and he was pretty sure that smearing alien goo all over the brand new military commander was probably not on them.

He could hear loud voices from the corner of the infirmary where she’d been before they arrived. It sounded like arguing, though, more than screaming.

“I don’t even know,” Keller said, giving a little eye roll that didn’t seem to be directed at Cameron, at least. “McKay-”

“It is a substance from Rodney’s lab?” Emmagan interjected. It sounded like an innocent question, but she said it just a little too pointedly. “Is it not?”

Keller took her eyes off Cameron. “What?” She blinked at Emmagan. “Yeah, that’s what it is. From his lab.”

“Is McKay okay?” Cam asked, remembering Emmagan’s listening to a conversation involving him.He peered towards the rear of the infirmary, but there were enough curtains and what not that he couldn’t see anything.

Now, Keller looked back at him. “He’s fine. I’m just going to stab him full of benadryl.” There was a muffled shout from the back. “With a really big needle!” She raised her voice and hollered so McKay could hear her.

“Sounds good,” Cameron said, some of his suspicion soothing. Maybe Emmagan just didn’t want him to find out about one of McKay’s screw-ups.

Emmagan cleared her throat, lightly. Keller shook her head as if getting herself back on track. “May I help you, Colonel?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “I need to get me one of them nifty subspace transmitter locators –” he slapped his arm – “and I’d like to get a dose of the ATA-gene therapy.” He paused. “But that can wait until after you’ve stabbed McKay.”

“A nurse can do that,” Keller said, easily. “Let me clean up and I’ll take care of you.”

Emmagan still hadn’t moved, which was just weird. She was holding very still, but her eyes kept sliding around the infirmary like she expected something really interesting to happen any minute.

“I can wait,” Cam said. He could. He could also go see what the hell was going on back there.

“No,” said Emmagan, answering for Keller. Cameron glanced at her, unable to hide his irritation. She saw his face and tried to give another disarming smile. “He is very excited about getting the gene,” she said, brightly.

Cam was, and he’d told her so. It was true, but the way she said it, it just sounded like she’d made it up on the spot.

“Most people are,” Keller said. She paused, then knitted her brow. “When was your last physical?” Cam blinked at her for a second. “Some people have immuno reactions to the shot,” she said. “It’s less effective if you’re ill.”

“They checked me over inside and out,” Cam said. “Before I boarded the Daedalus.”

“I’d still like to –” she began.

“It was _very invasive_ ,” Cameron said, because it’d been the suckiest part of the application procedure. It’d been the only part of the application procedure other than saying yes and signing on the dotted line. But still.

“The Daedalus has the flu,” Emmagan said, which didn’t even make any sense.He looked at her sideways. “Frequently,” she added, weakly.

“She’s right,” Keller said, nodding. “It’s an excellent environment for a contagion.”

“I feel fine,” Cam snapped. Actually, he felt jerked around and it was beginning to piss him off. “I don’t need a physical.”

“I’d like one for my records, anyway,” Keller said, like he hadn’t even spoken. She waved a hand at a nurse standing across the infirmary. “Will you take Colonel Mitchell to an exam room, please?”

Cameron went with the nurse, half expecting Emmagan to follow and stick by him until the moment he dropped his drawers. She didn’t, instead stalking across the infirmary and vanishing into the back.

“Keller will be right with you,” promised the nurse. She was small and Asian, and at least she didn’t seem to be lying to him.  
  
“Something going on?” Cam asked.

“Dr. McKay doesn’t enjoy the infirmary,” the nurse said. “He’s not a happy patient. That’s all.” And that sounded, well, reasonable.

“Okay,” Cam said.

“Please get undressed,” the nurse said, but she made no motion to leave.

It was back to being weird again, because she stayed until he was down to his boxers. Maybe that was what they did here.

“Do have much experience with Ancient tech?” the nurse asked.  
  
Since she probably didn’t mean all the ways he did have experience, which were mostly accidental or came attached with some kind of horrible danger, Cam went with: “No.”

So she started in on explaining, in detail, how every piece of Ancient medical tech worked. And she could have been trying to comfort him, maybe patients freaked out when they had to stick their heads in stuff or something. Cam tried to listen and he tried not to feel like he was being _distracted_ and deliberately occupied.

Dr. Keller came back, cleaned up, in a few minutes. Maybe a bit longer than a few. Like fifteen.

What followed was a normal physical, not actually all that different from the many he’d had before, and despite the extensive lecture he’d just had, it involved barely any ancient tech. And the ones she did use weren’t scary.

“All good?” Cameron asked, when she was done. “Can I get the chip and the magic gene, now?”

“Sure,” Keller said. “Are you prone to keloid scars at all?”

Cam blinked at her. “I have no idea what that is,” he said. “So, no?”

“It’s tissue overgrowth during healing,” Keller said. “I didn’t see any on you, but I need to ask.”

“Why?” Cam asked.

“The new subcutaneous implants are bigger,” she said, taking a seat on the stool beside the exam table. “Because, as it was explained to me, the electronics have to be bigger so the signal can travel further. Some people have been having adverse reactions and other complications to the chips being bigger.”

“I was wondering why I had to get a new one,” Cameron said, poking at his arm above the elbow. “This one works fine.”

“It works on Earth,” Keller said. “It wouldn’t work if, say, we were looking for you across the whole Pegasus galaxy.”

“Right,” Cam said. “I guess we learned that the hard way.” And he probably shouldn’t have said that out loud. But Keller just nodded, looking down. She could have been avoiding eye contact, or she could have just been assembling the device to implant the new tracker.

“These are based on Wraith trackers,” she said, when she raised her eyes. “Subspace frequencies.”

“That’s actually really creepy,” Cam said, honestly. He wondered if Dex had one, considering the man’s history.

“Yeah,” Keller said, flatly. “Hold out your arm.” She had something that looked like a piercing gun in her hand. “It hurts more, now, too,” she warned. “I have to use a bigger needle.” And then she pulled the trigger.

“Motherfu-” Cameron managed to get his other hand over his face, muffling the other half of the obscenity. She hadn’t been kidding about it hurting more.  
  
“Sorry.” Keller winced at him. “All done.”

Cam touched his arm where the instrument had touched him. The tiny inflamed circle was the only sign of any injury. When he pressed down, he could feel the hard, square outline of something under his skin.

“Huh,” he said.

“Don’t poke at it,” Keller said.

“Alright.” He dropped his hand.

“We’ll see about getting you the ATA-gene therapy in a few days,” Keller said, standing, He must have looked disappointed, because she went on: “Sorry. It takes a little while to prepare. Don’t worry. You can get dressed now.”

After Keller left, Cam swiftly redressed and left the exam room while still shoving his shoes on to his feet. And then he made a beeline to the back of the infirmary, where McKay had been being treated when Cameron had arrived.

No one tried to stop him, or even appeared to notice he wasn’t leaving. But either he was totally paranoid or they’d been really intent on keeping him away from McKay earlier.

Not so, now. Cam found McKay’s room, easily. Mostly because he passed a doorway and saw Emmagan sitting by a gurney.

“Hey,” Cam said, entering. “What happened? There a lemonade explosion in McKay’s lab or something?”

Emmagan glanced at him, face creased. She clearly didn’t find his joke funny. But someone rumbled softly from the far wall. Cam looked over, finding a very tall, very hairy man in leather pants leaning there. Even without an introduction, Cam knew this was Ronon Dex.

McKay was asleep. He was silent and still against the gurney. Cam thought he looked okay, maybe a little pinker than normal but no obvious injuries. Still, he knew what it was like to have a teammate in the infirmary, so he backed off on any further wisecracks.

“Hello,” he said, taking a step towards Dex. “We haven’t met.”

Emmagan rose from her seat. “This is Colonel Mitchell,” she said, tilting her head at him. “Colonel Mitchell, Ronon Dex.”

Cam offered his hand, wondering why Emmagan had done the introductions. “Cameron Mitchell,” he said. “Call me Cam.”

“Hey,” Dex said. He took Cameron’s handshake – not all that hard – and let go quickly. He didn’t offer the same familiarity, either.

“Is McKay okay?” Cam asked, stepping back and looking at the gurney.

“He is sedated,” Emmagan answered. “He was allergic to the substance he was analyzing in his lab.”

“He looks okay,” Cam observed.

“We got him back quick,” Dex said. He stayed leaning against the wall.

Cam looked at him in confusion.

“He got to the infirmary quickly,” Emmagan interjected. “From his lab.”

“Right.” Dex shrugged. He didn’t sound like he cared all that much.

“Good,” Cameron said, eyeing the two of them. He was trying not to be suspicious again. Emmagan seemed tense, but that could have been about McKay’s condition. Dex was the exact opposite, staying reclined against the wall and barely sparing a glance towards Cam.

Abruptly, Cam felt like a third wheel. These two were sitting vigil, more or less, and he was intruding.

“I’m gonna go,” he said. He jerked his head towards McKay’s still form. “Hope he wakes up soon.”

~

McKay did wake up soon. He was fine, just a little covered in hives. Shortly after that, Cameron got an emergency bulletin in his e-mail of a picture of a bushy plant with large, grapefruit-sized purple berries. The text of the document described it as common Pegasus fruit to which, apparently, Milky Way humans might be incredibly allergic. It warned against touching, let alone eating the berries. Cam took a second to wonder why McKay had been studying stupid berries for energy properties, but then he turned off the computer and headed off to get the ATA-gene therapy shot and completely forgot about the incident.

The ATA-gene therapy did not work on Cameron.

That sucked.

The medical staff must have sensed his disappointment, because they were awfully solicitous about it. It worked on less than half of the recipients, evidently. Nothing they could do, just a failing of the therapy. Nothing to do with Cameron. It wasn’t his fault his ancestors had never gotten freaky with the Ancients.

Cam tried to take it in stride and pretend it didn’t annoy him as much as it did. He wondered if anyone else was thinking how…incongruent, at best, it was that the military commander of the Atlantis couldn’t fly the Puddlejumpers or sit in the Control Chair to defend the city.

If they were, no one showed it to Cameron’s face.

To Cam, it seemed like a giant, concrete, and permanent reminder of one of the many ways he was not John Sheppard, who’d had pretty much the strongest gene expression ever recorded. And here Cameron was, unable to even turn on the lights without help.

He tried to focus on it more as a guideline than a weakness. Since Cam didn’t have the gene, he needed someone on his ‘Gate team who did. That would narrow the selection process down a bit. Emmagan didn’t have it – apparently had no intention of trying to get it, either.

The ATA-gene therapy had worked on McKay. If nothing else, it gave Cam some pretext to invite the man to join his team without it looking like he was just trying to recreate Sheppard’s team. Cameron wanted everyone to know that he recognized and respected what had come before him, and he was willing, but not necessarily committed to continuing it.

McKay turned him down flat.

Cam tracked him down a day or so after the man was released from the infirmary. McKay looked fine, any evidence of the allergic reaction and its hives hidden under his clothing.

He didn’t even let Cameron say anything beyond, “So, I’m forming a ‘Gate team -”

“No,” McKay interrupted. “I don’t have time. I’m too busy.”

McKay seemed determined to illustrate just how busy he was, rushing around his lab and forcing Cameron to follow him if he wanted to continue the conversation. Zelenka, also there, kept dodging out of his way, scowling.

“You were on a ‘Gate team before,” began Cam, knowing he sounded dangerously close to whining. Also, he wasn’t supposed to be reminding anyone about _before_.

“And it was a waste of my time,” snapped McKay, still darting back and forth between various stations and grabbing pieces of equipment off the counter. He could move pretty quick for a out of shape geek. “I am much more productive here. Everyone is happier now.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” muttered Zelenka, causing McKay to whirl on him.

“What?”

“He was very productive in field, too,” Zelenka offered, grinning at Cam.

“Shut up, Radek! Hey, you needed a scientist on your team, take this one! I sure as hell don’t need him. He’s all yours.”

Cam looked Zelenka over: short, scruffy, and abruptly really unhappy he was being considered.

“Please no,” Zelenka said. “I prefer the lab.”

“Why don’t you get me a list of names,” Cameron said, granting Zelenka his reprieve. “Of your geeks that are willing to go off-world?” He followed McKay to yet another station. “Preferably with the gene?”

“Fine!” McKay waved his hand. “Would you get lost?”

McKay had refused, but he hadn’t been nearly as hostile as Cam had expected him to be. Well, not personally hostile. Not the kind of anger you directed at someone you personally resented for replacing your dead best friend. Cam counted that as a win and moved on.

Tracking down Ronon Dex was slightly more challenging. From what Cam could tell, he didn’t exactly stay very still. Dex was rarely in his quarters. He also didn’t answer when Cameron paged him on the intercom, which could have meant Dex simply didn’t have any interest in talking to Cam. Or that he was the hostile one Cam should be worrying about.

Sam had advised that one of Dex’s favorite activities was beating the crap out of Marines, but even when Cam staked out the gym, there was no sign of the man. Nor in the cafeteria during meal times. Or during less traditional meal times. It was sort of bizarre. The guy had to eat. Finally, after McKay got around to sending down the personnel files of scientists willing or at least available to go off-world but Cam still hadn’t managed to get a hold of Dex, Cameron made it known to Emmagan that he was having trouble finding the man.

He probably should have done that immediately, because shortly after he mentioned it to her, Cam ran into Dex stretching outside the gym he knew for a fact the other man hadn’t been near in a week.

“Hey,” Cam said, coming to a halt in the corridor. “I’ve been looking for you!”

Dex didn’t pause in stretching out his left hamstring. “Here I am,” he said, balancing easily on one leg. He cast a curious glance at Cameron, like Dex had been standing there the whole time.

“Where ya been?” Cam asked, keeping his voice mild. It wasn’t really any of his business, but he wanted Dex to be aware that he damn well knew Dex had been avoiding him.

“Off-world,” replied Dex, switching legs. He answered without any hesitation and it sounded true.

Cam hadn’t expected honesty. “Oh,” he said. Dex didn’t say anything, just kept stretching.

“Teyla said you were going on pilgrimages?” Cam prompted.

Dex finished stretching and straightened up in smooth, fluid movement. He met Cam’s eyes, face blank. “Yep.”

“Oh,” Cam said. He felt thwarted. Dex wasn’t being hostile. He wasn’t being aggressive. He didn’t even seem to care that Cam was asking him very pointed questions. “So,” Cam continued. “Guess you’re pretty busy, then.”

“Yeah,” Dex said. “I’m gonna go run now.” He tipped his head down the hallway.

“Okay,” Cam said, because there wasn’t really anything else he could say. Dex didn’t want to be asked, that much was clear. If Cameron tried to, now, it would just be awkward and probably make Cam look pathetic. “See you around,” he said, and Dex took off.

~

So, the first three months of Cameron’s tenure on Atlantis were spent trying to form a ‘Gate team. It was a lot harder than he would have thought, even though he’d known ahead of time that Sheppard’s team was probably not going to become his team. Evidently, he’d still been in a little bit of denial about that.

Emmagan had agreed to join him, at least. Cam did feel good about that. Even if he hadn’t liked her personally – which he did – he was pretty sure that having her by his side made the rest of Atlantis like _him_ more than they might have otherwise. And that was a weird thing to contemplate, that being approved of by the Pegasus alien somehow gave the genuine Milky Way American guy more legitimacy. It was her galaxy, after all, so maybe it wasn’t that strange.

It probably would have bothered him more if he hadn’t liked Emmagan. But he did. She was easy to get along with . He would eventually forget about the initial weirdness on her end during his first week on Atlantis. She was smart and calm – totally levelheaded about everything. He wasn’t entirely sure that he knew how to have a team member completely unlikely to go off halfcocked, but it was a good problem to have.

Emmagan helped him select two more team members. She knew most of the soldiers and scientists, so she at least had a starting point. Cameron half suspected that McKay would have picked the most annoying people in his department that he just wanted to get out of his hair.

It wasn’t nearly as momentous as when Cam had reunited SG-1, but it still felt good. With Emmagan’s input, he selected a Spanish soldier with the gene and a Chinese scientist from McKay's lab. Both seemed competent and sane, which was a good place to start. Both were kind of quiet, maybe a little shy. Cam figured they'd come around. If not, he was open to some rearranging. He was the boss, after all. It probably wasn't a good idea to start cannibalizing existing teams to get the personalities he wanted, but it was an option.

Nothing really terrible happened in Cameron's first three months in Pegasus. He kept waiting for someone to turn on him, for someone to challenge his leadership or something. The two main suspects for such behavior, McKay and Dex, didn't do anything of the sort. He very rarely heard from McKay. Dex was equally silent. Both men were definitely keeping busy, maybe deliberately so. He only ever saw McKay in the cafeteria and had to make a conscious effort to track down Dex.

Cam didn't really have any reason to want to have them around. McKay's department wasn't military, after all. And Dex wasn't military or even from Earth. He had no real authority, except if Dex was _de facto_ military, Cam kind of thought he should see the guy a little more often.

Part of it was that Cameron had been expecting trouble. He'd been expecting McKay to be an obnoxious asshole that threw tantrums and tried to undermine Cam. And Dex, well, he wasn't quite sure what he'd expected, but it wasn't this. He would have preferred aggression and attitude to the neutral disinterest Dex directed at him. That was just annoying.

He would admit that some of it was that he wanted the former members of Sheppard team to…well, at this point he’d have settled for Dex and McKay to acknowledge him. Cam didn’t see them enough to be sure that either of them fully realized that he, Cameron Mitchell, was in charge now. That might have been a childish feeling, but it stayed.

Maybe it was the fact that for being the leader ofan Ancient city in another galaxy, his life on Atlantis was actually kind of boring. Less interesting than his time at the SGC. It could have been his team. He enjoyed having Emmagan around, but the other two were mostly just quiet and obedient. Maybe it was the language barrier. Cam never would have thought that he would have missed Jackson's babbling or Vala's pathological attraction to trouble. But he did.

Most of the missions during those first few months were also, well, boring. Exchanging beans and whatnot with various natives. Important, sure, but not all that challenging. He hadn't even met the Wraith, yet. Not that he wanted an up close and personal encounter with those monsters, but apparently he kind of did. He just wanted something more interesting than handing over one trade item, receiving another, and then packing it in.

He had a few amusements. Emmagan would spar with him, and that was fun if a little dispiriting. He _hated_ getting beaten by an opponent who took breaks to breastfeed her son. Not very enlightened male of him, but it was the truth. Emmagan’s little boy was still just a baby, toddling around the halls of Atlantis. Someone eventually told Cameron the kid was named after John Sheppard, and he kind of wished they hadn’t. It changed the way Cam looked at the kid, like Emmagan’s son represented more than just a happy little boy.

Later, Cam would realize what a colossal _moron_ he’d been during this peaceful, uneventful time.

~

 

Everything changed very, very quickly.

About four months after his arrival on Atlantis, a blaring alarm woke Cameron in the middle of the night. At first, he thought it was his clock, so he leaned over and whacked at his bedside table, trying to stop the racket. Eventually, he realized the sound wasn’t coming from his quarters and that he was being repeatedly paged by someone screaming into his earpiece.

“What the hell is going on?” Cam shouted into his earpiece. He lurched out of bed and found some pants, struggling to get dressed in the dark.

He could barely hear a response over the siren and static was filling the comm. line. Cam shoved on his boots and raced from his quarters. The moment he was out in the corridor, he felt the floor beneath his feet actually shake. The siren stayed on, but Cam could hear something else as he ran down the corridor. It sounded like explosions.

The next two hours were a blur. Cam had to stand by, helpless, next to Woolsey while pilots with the gene took flight in Puddlejumpers and Lorne manned the Control Chair.

Atlantis was under fire. Cameron could see what looked like rockets streaking through the sky, aiming at whatever part of the city they could reach. They looked small and sinister, and they were punching through the shield like it wasn’t even there.

“How the hell are they doing that?” he demanded, unable to stop flinching every time another rocket slipped through what looked like dozens of pockets suddenly appearing the shield.

“I think projectiles have shield with same frequency,” Zelenka’s voice came over Cam’s earpiece. The man sounded out of breath and panicked. “Is no barrier.”

Cam watched another dozen missiles appear in the sky.

“Evacuate,” he said to Woolsey, tensely.

It took a second for the other man to respond, also staring in shock out the window. “The towers,” Woolsey said, finally. “At least.

“Are there any Hive ships on their way?” Cam asked one of the techs, hunched over his station.

“No, sir,” the man responded. “Just those things.”

“How many?”

The guy stared at his screen. “A lot,” he said. “A lot.”

Before the two hours were over, one of Atlantis’ spires would take a direct hit from two of the projectiles. It cracked and started leaning, towards the water thankfully and not the rest of the city. Cam watched in horror as the building ripped away, fire raging inside, and tumbled into the sea.

“Fire containment,” he ordered into his radio, more automatic than anything else. The teams would already have been assembling, they didn’t need the command.

Finally, there were no more missiles in the sky. Only a few had actually impacted the city, the rest deflected by the drones or by destroyed in the air by the Puddlejumpers. He could see the wreckage, churning in the ocean. Miraculously, only two ships had gone down and the pilots had gotten out.

Cam recalled half the Puddlejumpers, leaving the rest out there just in case. But he needed to rest at least some of the pilots, in case there was a second wave. The techs’ screens were blank, but they also hadn’t seen this one coming. Cam felt tense and exhausted at the same time, useless adrenaline still strumming in his veins.

  
“Conference room,” he said to Woolsey, who nodded.

~

It wasn’t over.

The meeting in the conference room was cancelled before it began, moved instead to McKay’s lab.

“They missed one,” Zelenka said, when Cam, Woolsey, and Emmagan were all gathered around him. Lorne remained in the chair, another precaution. Zelenka pointed to a screen with a point pulsating in the center of some gridlines.

“What is that?” Cam asked, a bad feeling shooting through his chest.

“Projectile,” Zelenka answered. “But is not explosive. Is very tiny and I think it deliberately missed the city. Is in the sea”

“Why?” asked Woolsey.

At the same time, Cam picked up on the first sentence. “What is it?” he asked.

“Probe,” Zelenka said. “Is trying to broadcast our location back to its origin.”

“What?” demanded Cam, while Woolsey heaved a breath.

“Is trying,” Zelenka repeated, “I have several programs interfering.”

“Good,” said Cam. “Let’s blow it up.”

“No, no,” Zelenka said. “Is designed for you to try to do that. Explosion would interrupt my programs, would allow it to transmit our coordinates before it was destroyed.”

“How can we stop it?” Emmagan asked, when both Woolsey and Cameron went quiet.

Zelenka shrugged. “I have no idea.” He looked from Cameron to Woolsey and back again. “Give me time. I need to conference with others.”

“Do we have time?” asked Emmagan, looking worried.

That made Zelenka run a hand through his messy hair. “I have no idea.”

In the silence, Cam glanced around the lab at the other scientists frantically typing at their keyboards and handing off tablets to each other.

“Where’s McKay?” he asked, suddenly realizing the man wasn’t there.

Zelenka was rising and heading back towards all the activity.

“McKay,” Cam repeated, when it looked like Zelenka wasn’t going to answer.

“I don’t have time to explain,” Zelenka said, looking with big eyes at Woolsey, even though it was Cam who had asked the question.

~

It was over almost as quickly as it started. For a few terrifying hours, all Cam could do was watch the little spot blinking on the grid lines, somewhere out there in the ocean. They didn’t even know where it had come from, who was waiting to receive the coordinates to Atlantis.

Cam really wanted to blow the thing up, regardless of Zelenka’s warning. He had visions of a Wraith hive fleet, already on its way.

But then, Zelenka called on the radio. The man sounded exhausted. “Is dead,” he said. “We wrote malicious program to destroy software. It worked.”

Emmagan sighed in relief, while Woolsey rested his head in his hands.

  
“I can blow it up, now?” Cam checked.

“Yes,” said Zelenka.

“Good,” Cameron said, and ordered the remaining circling Puddlejumpers to do just that.

It didn’t make him feel any better, though.

The aftermath was chaotic. Cam worked with Lorne to organize engineering teams to try and stabilize the area around the lost tower. He let half the military squads go home and sleep.

And then he had a meeting with Woolsey, Emmagan, Keller, and Zelenka to talk about what the hell had just happened.

“Wraith?” he asked.

Emmagan nodded. “It would appear so,” she said. “But it could also be Michael.” She looked at him like she didn’t want to explain who that was.

“I read about him,” he said. “I didn’t realize this kind of thing was at his disposal.”

“It is,” Emmagan said, without elaboration.

“Does he know where we are, then?” Cam asked.

“No,” said Zelenka. “Those objects were programmed to look for Atlantis, to find city with shield like ours and cause damage.”

“And then tell daddy where we were,” Cam interjected.

Woolsey shuddered. “So he could attack in the aftermath.”

“Precisely,” Zelenka said.

“Fabulous,” Cameron observed. He looked at Keller. “Casualties?”

“No fatalities,” Keller reported, trying to smile. “Miraculously. But I had thirty-nine casualties. Ten burn victims and most of the others had more minor injuries. All of them are expected to survive.”

“Good,” Woolsey murmured.

“Is Rodney McKay among them?” Cameron asked. For a second, Keller blinked at him with big eyes. “It’s an easy question. Is Rodney McKay among them?” he repeated.

“Um,” Keller hesitated. “No,” she said, finally.

“Okay,” Cam said, leaning back in his chair. He looked accusingly from Woolsey to Emmagan, then to Keller and Zelenka. “Then where the hell is he?” Silence answered him. “If I’m not mistaken,” he continued, gruffly, “Using his brain to save this city from this kind of thing is exactly his job. No disrespect, Dr. Zelenka, your and your people did an excellent job.”

Zelenka dipped his head, but otherwise avoided eye contact. “Thank you.”

“So, where the hell is he?” Cam asked.

“He is off-world with Ronon Dex.” It was Emmagan that finally answered him. Her voice was calm, face honest.

“Why?” Cameron demanded. “And why the hell is it a secret?” He looked at Woolsey, who was leaning back in his chair. “Did you know about this?”

“Yes and no,” Woolsey replied. Cam glared at him ‘till he elaborated. “I have plausible deniability if the IOA asks if I knew about it,” Woolsey said. “I didn’t know specifics.”

“Plausible deniability?” Cam echoed, trying to keep his anger under control. “What the hell am I missing, here?”

“Ronon and Rodney are still looking for Colonel Sheppard,” Zelenka confessed, face pinched. “Against IOA orders.”

Cameron stared at him. “Oh.” He was silent for a second. “And you all knew about this.” All the heads at the table nodded. “ _Everyone_ knew about this,” Cam realized. “Except me.”

~   
 


	3. Men in Stiff Procession Part 3

There wasn’t anything Cameron could do about McKay and Dex’s secret rogue mission. They were out of contact and Zelenka claimed no one actually know where the two men were. Partly due to the whole ‘plausible deniability,’ which made Cam so mad he couldn’t even articulate why. Well, he could, but not without sounding like an IOA puppet, so he kept his mouth shut. McKay and Dex’s movements were also unpredictable, based half on intelligence they gathered as they searched, so even if they theoretically filed a mission plan, they weren’t necessarily sticking to it.

The theoretical mission plan, or more simply what Dex had told Emmagan before they departed, was to return by Friday. That meant Cameron had three days to stew in his juices before he would even get the chance to confront the two. He forced himself to the put it out of his mind, concentrating instead on organizing the recovery of the city in the aftermath of the attack. There was the possibility that whoever had sent the projectile attack – be it an anonymous Wraith hive or Michael – had had other ways besides the destroyed transmitter to track its destination. More, or something different, could be on its way. Cam cancelled all off-world activity for his team and every other, making defense of the city the priority.

But on Friday, after typical ‘Gate activity hours, Cameron planted himself near the ‘Gate. He dismissed the techs, who halfheartedly resisted but scattered eventually. Dex and McKay had confined their ‘Gate travel to odd hours, so that they arrived at and departed from Atlantis when most people were asleep. Cameron was going to need a lot of coffee, but he was going to stay awake and make sure he was the first thing the men saw when they came through.

He’d only been there alone for a few hours when he heard footsteps click on the floor. Cameron looked up to find Emmagan entering.

“May I join you?” she asked, politely from a distance.

Cam nodded his assent and she approached, carefully taking a seat in the empty tech’s chair next to his. There was silence for a few minutes, Emmagan looking at her knees with great interest.

“You must think I’m a total idiot,” Cameron said, when she didn’t speak.

Emmagan looked up. “I do not,” she replied.

“McKay’s studying, what did you call it, energy properties of gigantic alien berries?” Cam went on. “And I fell for it.” He shook his head. “I was distracted. Shiny new city.” he told her. “I promise I’m not usually that stupid.”

“I do not think you are stupid,” Emmagan said, clearly. “You were deliberately mislead.”

“Yeah,” Cam snapped. “I didn’t expect everyone – _everyone_ – to lie to me. I’m trusting like that.” He made a fist against the top of the station he was sitting at, stared down at his hand.

“That was not our intent,” Emmagan began, taking a deep breath.

“ _What?_ ”

“It was necessary,” Emmagan tried again. “I do not think you are stupid, Colonel Mitchell. I did not wish to deceive you, but it was necessary.” Cameron grunted, because her apology was sucking. “You should know,” she continued, earnestly. “That I and the rest of the city do respect and admire your command. Particularly after the attack.” Cam glanced at her, waiting. “And personally, I am sorry,” she said, finally. “For lying to you.”

Cameron shook his head. “You aren’t sorry,” he said, knowingly. “Because you don’t actually think you did anything wrong.”

Emmagan sat up straight. “Fine,” she said. “You are correct about that. I am sorry that I was required to lie to you. That is genuine.”

“Appreciate it,” Cam said, even though her honesty actually made him even angrier. “How long has this been going on?” he asked.

“Since the beginning,” Emmagan answered, understanding the question. “Since the day the IOA called off the search.”

“Okay,” Cameron said. “My predecessor – the one that only lived three months – his death have anything to do with it?”

“No!” Emmagan was staring at him. “His death was an accident. He was a poor commander but we would never -”

“I had to ask,” Cam interrupted her denial. “Because a few days ago thirty-nine people got hurt because a guy that’s supposed to be here to protect them was off doing God knows what.”

“Radek –” she began.

“I know,” Cameron went on. “Zelenka did fine and we are damn lucky to have him. But I know and you know and _Zelenka_ knows that McKay probably could have deactivated that thing a hell of a lot faster.”

Emmagan snapped her lips shut. Her eyes were wide and a muscle in her jaw was twitching.

“Say it,” Cam said. “Permission to speak freely, if that’s what you need.”

Apparently that was what she needed. “Rodney is _not_ ‘doing God knows what.’ Rodney and Ronon are searching for Colonel Sheppard,” she said, hotly.

Cameron lifted his elbow on to the console surface, avoiding the controls. He leaned his head into his hand. She really didn’t understand. Emmagan was bright and intelligent and smart as a whip about pretty much everything else. This was willful ignorance.

“Teyla,” he said, too aggravated to soften it. “John Sheppard is dead.”

“You do not know that. There is no proof.”

“How long has he been missing?” Cam asked, trying to get some of the harshness out of his voice.

“One year and…” Emmagan paused. “A year and a half,” she said. “Just over.”

“John Sheppard is dead,” he repeated. Emmagan began to reply, but shut up with an audible click of her teeth when he went on. “I know it. You know it. He’s dead. They killed him. If they didn’t shoot him in the head or slit his throat immediately, they sent him somewhere that he’d starve or freeze to death.”

Emmagan’s eyes started to glitter and for a second Cameron regretting being that brutal. But there was a giant hole in his city and almost forty of his people in the infirmary, and she had to get this.

“I know you’d still want to bring him home,” he continued. “But his body, his corpse, is not worth one life in this city.” Emmagan didn’t say anything. “He’d be the first to say that, too.”

“He and I often disagreed,” she replied, the wetness vanishing from her eyes. “It makes no difference.”

Cameron lifted his head, stared at her. He couldn’t believe she was this stubborn.

“Yeah,” he said. “It makes a difference. Now, I can’t control Dex. But I am officially in charge of McKay. And the way I feel right now, I’m thinking he’s going to be spending some considerable time in the brig.”

Emmagan just stared at him. “You would not –” she began.

“Yeah, I will,” he retorted. “Do you know how badly he endangered this city? I’m not just talking about a few days ago when we needed him. What if someone unfriendly captured him? The Wraith? This Michael guy?”

For some reason, Emmagan was looking at him like she’d just decided that Cameron was well and truly stupid. “Yes,” she said. “I do. That is why _Ronon_ is with him.”

It was Cam’s turn to stare at her. “Well,” he said, finally. “I don’t know Ronon. I’ve seen him twice in the whole time I’ve been here. Because of this brilliant secret plan, so I don’t know him. Forgive me if I don’t have that kind of faith in him.”

“You do not know him,” Emmagan said, like that settled everything.

Cameron just shook his head. He wasn’t sure arguing with her any further had a point. He’d really misjudged the personnel files. It wasn’t just Dex that was fiercely loyal to Sheppard; McKay and Emmagan were, too.

“Can I ask you something?” he said, after a few minutes of frustrated silence.

“Certainly,” Emmagan replied.

“So,” Cam said. “You agreed to join my team. Was that just a ruse to make sure I didn’t happen to notice what the rest of Sheppard’s team was up to?”

“No,” Emmagan said, plainly. “I would not have joined if I did not wish to serve with you.”

“Thanks,” Cameron said, “but that’s not what I’m asking. Why aren’t you out there with Dex and McKay, looking for him?”

“Oh.” She pursed her lips, tilted her head to the side.

“Well?”

“Because he would be furious with me,” she answered, speaking with a noticeable certainty.

“Sheppard.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“He would not find it an acceptable risk,” Emmagan said. “I might be permanently separated from my son.”

“He wouldn’t find any of it an acceptable risk,” Cameron retorted. “Not you, not McKay, not Dex. Not _anyone._ ”

“I am certain he will tell them so when they find him,” Emmagan replied, her tone booking no argument.

Cameron would have argued, though, except that the console beneath his fingers suddenly registered an incoming wormhole. Emmagan peered at the screen.

“That is them,” she told him.

“Let ‘em in,” he replied, rising and walking down towards the ‘Gate. He heard the computer activate, the ‘Gate lighting up before his eyes.

Cam crossed his arms, standing a good bit back from the wormhole. He just wanted both men to see him, the moment they came through. Shortly, two figures emerged from the ‘Gate’s threshold. Side by side, the smaller man clinging to the larger one. Their voices came next, the sound of pain and stress in McKay’s unmistakable. The guy was injured.

The two moved gingerly away from the ‘Gate, the wormhole dying behind them. McKay was grunting and wincing, but went totally silent when his eyes landed on Cameron.

“Oh, shit,” McKay said.

~

Cameron did not get to throw McKay in the brig. The inclination mostly faded, too, since it was immediately apparent that McKay was in bad shape. The guy was pale in the face and his left leg hung limply as he refused to put any weight on it. His clothing was covered in mud.

“Infirmary,” called Cam back to Emmagan, who began speaking into her headset. “We’ll meet them in the corridor.”

  
Without asking, he insinuated himself under McKay’s right shoulder, taking half the man’s weight from Dex.

“What happened?” he asked, not really directing the question at either man in particular.  
  
“He fell,” answered Dex, curtly. “It’s broken.”

“Yes,” McKay said, voice high and unhappy. “It’s broken and I need morphine, I need so much morphine right now.”

Together, Dex and Cameron maneuvered McKay to the door. Neither of them tried to explain to Cam why they were arriving in the middle of the night from a mission he hadn’t been supposed to know anything about. In return, he didn’t ask.

A medical team met them before they were halfway down the hallway, carefully transferring the whimpering McKay to a gurney. Cameron stood still, watching the medics move swiftly towards the transporter. To his surprise, Dex stayed by his side instead of following McKay.

“You are so busted,” Cam told him, some of the earlier anger making its way back into his voice.

Dex just looked at him, then nodded. His face didn’t display guilt or worry or much of anything.Emmagan arrived on their heels, glancing around.

“Is Rodney alright?” she asked, concerned.

“He fell,” Dex said, again, without much inflection. He looked at Emmagan. “Something happen while we were gone?” He flicked a glance at Cam.

“Yeah,” snapped Cameron. “Something happened.”

“Much,” replied Emmagan, sighing.

~

The confrontation finally happened nearly a day later. It wasn’t ideal. For one, McKay was lying in an infirmary bed with three screws holding his leg bones aligned. He was awake, but pumped full of drugs. Cameron was still really pissed off at everyone, but he knew personally what it was like to have metal piercing your flesh to keep your body together, and suddenly it was a lot harder to yell at McKay like he’d wanted to before.

Dex, Emmagan, and Woolsey were all gathered around McKay’s bedside before Cam got there. He imagined they’d had an interesting conversation about what to do if Cameron reported all of this to the IOA.

Cam arrived in the infirmary and pulled up the only remaining free stool.

“You get a good look at the damage?” he asked Dex, since unlike McKay the man hadn’t been in the infirmary the whole time.

Dex glanced at him and nodded. He didn’t say anything, though. He could almost give Teal’c a run for his money in some kind of silence contest.

“They told me about it,” McKay said, miserably. He met Cam’s eyes from his position on the gurney. “Zelenka did the same thing I would have done,” he offered, and it almost sounded like an apology.

Cameron stared down at him. “I don’t care,” he said, flatly. “Why do none of you get this?” he demanded. When no one answered him, he turned to Woolsey. “Especially you?”

Woolsey looked over at him, chin resting on his hand. “Believe me,” he said. “I get it.”

“But you let –” Cam began.

“He didn’t let us do anything,” McKay interrupted, making a face.

“Just couldn’t stop us,” concurred Dex. Cameron looked at him hard, trying to read his face. It almost sounded like a dare.

“The IOA was wrong to stop the search,” Emmagan spoke up, her argument the same as it had been yesterday.

“Well, I think it’s stopped now,” Cam said, ignoring her. He looked back at McKay. “You’re out of commission for what, eight to ten weeks?”

McKay nodded against his pillow, exhaling.

“I’m fine,” Dex said, softly. It was barely above a whisper, but it was totally a challenge.

Cameron stared at him, and then something dawned in his head. Dex looked back at him, face unmoving.

“Okay,” he said, slowly. “I see how this works. I could tattle on you all to the IOA.” Woolsey let out a loud, worried breath. “They’d be _pissed_. You two –” he pointed to McKay and Woolsey – “would be out on your asses. There might actually be some prison time in it for you.” McKay shifted tensely against the sheets and he must have jostled his leg, because he hissed in pain. “I know my contract has some lines about how I’m not supposed to lie to or directly disobey orders from the IOA, and I bet yours do, too.”

“I don’t have a contract,” Dex interrupted. He was still staring challengingly at Cam, like Dex really didn’t think Cameron could do anything to him. Anger sliced through Cameron’s chest and he glared.

“Ronon,” McKay snapped, while Emmagan put a restraining hand on Dex’s knee.

“Nor do you have any right to live in this city,” retorted Cam, the man’s antagonism getting to him. And of course, Dex just shrugged.

Cameron saw Emmagan’s nails digging into Dex’s pant leg and forced himself to back off.

“I could do that,” Cameron continued. “You two, back to earth and in prison. You two, out of Atlantis.”

“You will not do such a thing,” Emmagan said, voice just as calm as Dex’s had been. But she wasn’t challenging him.

“Yeah,” Cam said. He looked pointedly at Dex. “No matter how tempted I might be.”

“Wait,” McKay said, perking up. “You aren’t going to tell on us?”

“No,” Cam said. “Because if I do that, the rest of the city will never accept my command.”

Woolsey nodded. “Now you understand the position I have been in,” he said.

“If I stop the search for him,” Cameron said, “I become the man that killed John Sheppard.”

No one said anything, but Cam thought they all looked just the slightest bit smug. Which just made him mad again. “But this,” he went on, “this stops.” He pointed at Dex and McKay. “No more secret missions. No more lying to me.”

~

It was better after that.

The change was palpable. People were warmer to Cam, not just warmer but…well, it felt like everyone was just realer. For most people who weren’t Vala Mal Doran, lying was hard and complicated. Cam got now that the distance that had existed between him and the rest of the city hadn’t just been because he was the new guy, the unproven one. It’d been because he was the outsider to their giant secret. And now he was in on it, not just in on it, but had essentially authorized it. Mostly because he didn’t have the choice to put a stop to it, but they didn’t know that part of it.

Things were a little tenser with Emmagan, because despite her apology, Cameron hadn’t quite forgiven her. It was worse, somehow, that’d she been cooperative and friendly to his face, while manipulating the hell out of him at the same time. He understood why, that she apparently felt she could serve along side him _and_ lie to him happily, at the same time. He just didn’t get it.

He was still baffled by the mass willful ignorance the entire city was operating under. John Sheppard was dead and the people he’d left behind were willing to endanger their own lives to bring back his body. And they didn’t see anything wrong with that.

Cameron didn’t get much time to focus on the newly exposed conspiracy, which might have been for the better. He didn’t understand it, and the more he thought about it, the more it pissed him off.

There was another attack. The space missiles, rockets, torpedoes, whatever the hell. Projectiles. Guided, shield-penetrating projectiles that were intent on blasting holes in Cameron’s city.

More of them, this time, and Cam still couldn’t do anything except watch as Puddlejumpers scrambled to defend the city and Lorne raced off to the Control Chair again.

He didn’t wait for the city to start burning, this time. Cam ordered an immediate evacuation of non-essential personnel, sent department after department through ‘Gate to the Alpha site as fast as they would go.

Though there were more projectiles this time, for some reason the attack wasn’t as bad. Cameron didn’t have to watch another spire fall into the ocean.

Cameron and Woolsey – who refused to evacuate to, which was both admirable and infuriating – found a window and watched the siege from a part of the city where the rockets weren’t falling. And then all of sudden, the rockets weren’t falling at all. The ones not shot down by the Puddlejumpers or the drones were changing course, veering away from the city and heading up towards the sky.

Later, Cameron found out that was the difference between not having Rodney McKay in the city and having him trapped in his lab, unable to leave Atlantis because his leg was still in a couple different pieces.

“We reprogrammed their navigation and sensor systems,” McKay explained, at the staff meeting a couple hours later. He looked exhausted and sweaty, and not particularly comfortable in the wheel chair he was using to get around. Cam knew he wasn’t allowed to put weight on the leg in the immobilizing brace; crutches were probably too painful.

“What about the transmitter…thing?” Woolsey asked.

“It, too,” McKay assured him. “They were programmed to look for a frequency broadcast from the shield. Zelenka managed to interfere with the transmission from the last one, so we already understood their electronics. It wasn’t hard to get in there, again, and tell it to do something else.”

“Where did you send it?” Emmagan asked, sounding concerned.

“Uninhabited moon a couple thousand light years away,” McKay replied.

“We still don’t know who sent it?” asked Woolsey.

“My bet would be on Michael,” said McKay, causing Emmagan to lean her head back and shut her eyes. “The Wraith are probably more interested in using us to find a way to Earth. And this attack was dumb.”

“Dumb?” questioned Cameron. His heart was still pounding, so he didn’t particularly agree with assessment.

“It was dumb to assume we’d still be in the same place,” McKay answered him. “If we’d taken that last attack seriously, we’d have gotten the hell out of dodge. And sending another bunch of winged monkeys instead of the wicked witch probably means the wicked witch doesn’t have a broom.”

Cam stared.

“Michael does not have a hive,” Emmagan translated for him, like she’d understood the comparison.

“He just wants to terrorize us,” Woolsey said.

McKay shrugged.

“Until he gets a broom,” Cam muttered.

“Yeah,” McKay said, “probably.”

~

Cameron saw more of McKay, now. Since he wasn’t going on secret clandestine missions Cam didn’t know about. The guy wasn’t nearly as irritating as Cam had predicted he’d be. He also didn’t complain about his broken leg nearly as much as Cameron expected, and he would have expected a lot since Cam knew personally how much of a pain in the ass wheelchair confinement was. And how much of a pain in the ass _and_ every other body part the physical therapy was that McKay had to be undergoing.

And so the man got some of Cam’s grudging respect, both for saving the city and for not whining excessively about his leg.

He did not see any more of Dex, who was still going on missions Cam now knew existed but still didn’t know very much about. The casual disinterest Dex had extended to him before continued now, maybe with a slightly harder edge. Cam wasn’t sure that was deserved. Maybe it was just the difference in Dex’s behavior between trying to keep Cam from catching on then and no longer needing to care what he thought now.

It irritated him. There were about fourteen thousand worse ways Cam could have reacted to finding out about the whole massive conspiracy against him, and he knew that because every one of them had gone through his mind. It wasn’t that he wanted bootlicking gratitude for not tattling to the IOA and completely up heaving the lives of everyone on Atlantis…he just wanted a little acknowledgement that he, Cam Mitchell, was not the bad guy here.

Some how, Cameron ended up mentioning this to McKay. They ate dinner together sometimes, along with Emmagan. It was almost friendly, even if it had totally different dynamics than eating a meal with SG-1. Cam was good-natured enough to get McKay seconds so he wouldn’t have to wheel through line again, but that didn’t stop McKay from stealing stuff (usually dessert) from Cam’s own tray or Emmagan’s, or hell even Emmagan’s son’s tray.

“Stealing from a baby? Tsk-tsk,” Cam said, when he came back to the table with McKay’s second helping of Pegasus lasagna and McKay had taken the kid’s fruit cup.

“He didn’t want it,” McKay defended himself.

Emmagan raised a dubious eyebrow. “You tricked him, Rodney,” she said.

“I’m teaching him,” McKay said. “He wants to eat, he won’t fall for that again.”

At the moment, Dex wandered into the mess. He glanced at the table where Cameron was sitting with McKay and Emmagan, then made a beeline towards the busy serving area. But when he had his tray filled, he walked right out of the mess again.

Cam watched him go, a little hurt. Dex never stayed if he saw Cameron sitting there. It wasn’t a particularly overt thing, but it was noticeable nonetheless.

“What,” he muttered, as Dex vanished through the door. “I got cooties or something?”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have threatened to kick him out of Atlantis?” retorted McKay, swallowing a mouthful of purloined diced peaches.

Cam glared. “Remember the part where I didn’t actually do that?”

“Ronon is slow to trust,” Emmagan said, reliably nicer than McKay. “It is not personal.”

Now, Cameron redirected his gaze across the table at her. It felt pretty damn personal.

“He is dedicated to his task,” she continued, at that glance.

“Pilgrimages,” he said, and Emmagan looked embarrassed. “Hey,” he said. “I fell for it.”

She nodded, then tilted her head thoughtfully. “It is not that far from the truth.”

“Yeah,” Cam agreed.

“Perhaps if you two spent more time together,” Emmagan suggested.

“He is dedicated to his task,” Cameron recited her words back. Then, he paused. “Hmm.”

“What?” asked Teyla.

“Don’t spar with him,” McKay said, seriously. “He’ll kill you.”

“Yeah, Sam did warn me about that,” Cam told him. He stood up, balancing his empty tray on one hand. “Excuse me.”

Cam bussed his tray, then quickly left the mess. He walked swiftly to Dex’s quarters, half afraid the man would have already managed to vanish.

But Dex was home and answered on the first chime. Cam was silent for a second, genuinely surprised Dex was both there and that responsive. Dex peered at him in confusion, clearly not expecting to find him at the door.

“Hey,” Cam said, striving for cheerful.

Dex just looked at him, so Cameron dived right in.

“Your next trip through the ‘Gate,” Cam said. “Looking for Sheppard. I want to come with.”

“Huh?” Dex’s eyebrow crept up in confusion. He didn’t look like he liked that idea at all, but then Cameron hadn’t expected him to.

Drawing himself to his full height, which was still substantially shorter than Dex, Cameron crossed his arms over his chest and set his chin. “I’m not asking,” he said.

~

Cameron hadn’t given much thought to the logistics of Dex’s search for Sheppard. He’d been very caught up in the ridiculous motivations behind it. It wasn’t until he actually came with that the insurmountable odds became clear to him. McKay risking his life, Dex risking his life, the exposure of the city…if that wasn’t enough, they were literally searching the entire galaxy. They had no clue where Sheppard might have been taken – if he’d been taken at all and not summarily executed.

Dex and McKay had narrowed down the planets to places known to be uninhabited based on reconnaissance surveys and Dex and Emmagan’s personal knowledge of their own galaxy. With the Wraith threat and their tendency to _eat entire planets full of humans_ , this was no small number.

Beyond that, Dex and McKay had developed a mission protocol of sorts. If the planet they arrived on did have inhabitants, then the men very deliberately avoided engaging the locals. This also was the case if they encountered Wraith, except that involved some very quick fleeing.

The one sign that they might be in the right place was the absence of a DHD or the presence of one that did not work.

When McKay explained that part, Cam felt like he’d been kicked in the head. It was yet another part of this situation he hadn’t thought about. And it was _McKay_ that explained it, arriving in the Gateroom to see Dex and Cam off. Dex didn’t say very much at all, and maybe McKay had known that would happen.

“What?” he demanded, interrupting McKay. “How- I mean, if you guys did find him, how the hell did you expect to bring him back? Wouldn’t you all be stranded?”

“No,” Dex said, looking at him like he was an idiot.

“Whaddaya mean no?”

“McKay made a portable one,” Dex explained. He hefted a big, square-shaped duffel bag from the floor behind him and held it out for Cam to take.

“Portable what?” Cameron demanded, taking the strap from him. Immediately, he nearly dropped it to the floor, having to grab it inelegantly with both hands. Damn thing was heavy.

“DHD,” McKay said, practically beaming with pride.

“You can carry it.” Dex told him.

Grunting, Cam slung the duffle bag over his shoulder.

Dex also made – well, handed him another piece of equipment and didn’t look like he wanted it back – Cam carry something else, the most vital tool in their search. It was a life sign detector programmed to locate the subcutaneous transmitters implanted in every mission member’s arm. And while the signal was too weak to locate across the entire galaxy, it could be detected in an area the size of a large planet.

And that was all they had. A list of empty planets and a scanner.

Cameron’s first thought was morbid: even with Sheppard were dead and buried, the scanner would find his implant’s signal anyway. He guessed that McKay and Dex knew this, even if they didn’t want to talk about it, so he didn’t say anything about it.

~


	4. New Fic: Men in Stiff Procession (SGA/SG-1, Gen, PG-13, AU from 5X13) Part

From then on, Cameron went with Dex on these rescue missions just about every other week. His own team mission generally didn’t last longer than a few days and it wasn’t like his social life was booming. In doing so, Cam did realize that he lost any and all ‘plausible deniability’ to protect his job if an IOA rep showed up on the Daedalus and wanted to know where he was. That probably should have bothered him more than it did. It nudged at him as a danger with an outcome that he really wouldn’t like, but also seemed like a distant, unlikely possibility.

He wondered if that wasn’t a consequence of being an entire galaxy away from his bosses.

His absence from the city didn’t seem to bother anyone. Lorne was there and could handle an emergency. It wasn’t like Cam could sit in the Chair or fly a Puddlejumper, anyway.

Traveling with Dex was enlightening. It was the same thing over and over again. Arrive on a planet, usually one with no sign of life around the ‘Gate. Cam immediately checked the life sign detector and it was always blank. And then they’d dial up the ‘Gate and go on to their next address. Waiting for the DHD to engage made them both tense. Cam always got the impression that Dex wanted it to fail, like that would mean Sheppard would suddenly materialize. But of course, the ‘Gate always lit up and Sheppard never appeared.

  
Sometimes before dialing out, Dex would poke around the vicinity of the ‘Gate. Even when the scanner was black and empty. He didn’t say anything about it, but Cameron eventually figured out the man was looking for a grave.

Cameron had a new appreciation for how awful this had been for Dex and McKay. They’d been doing this, totally fruitlessly, for a year and a half. Barely made a dent in the list of planets and had nothing to show for it. Cam imagined how he might feel in their place, searching for the body of Sam or Jackson or Teal’c or Vala. It made his chest twist, made him realize just how crazy this would make him if he’d loved Sheppard the way the rest of the city had.

The failure was the worst part, but the search itself sucked. Nine times out of ten, the planet they came out on was a nasty, inhospitable place. If it wasn’t empty because the Wraith had gobbled up the residents, it was empty because it was a shitty planet where no humans in their right minds would want to live. That meant ridiculously hot or insanely cold weather. Or terrain that made it next to impossible to stand, like the ‘Gate positioned on rocks surrounded by something that sure as hell resembled quicksand. How McKay had managed to get hurt was fairly obvious now.

Everything about the search was hard. Everything about it seemed like a constant reminder that it was basically desperate and futile and doomed.

Cam had decided to come along, in part, so he could try to convince Dex of that. But actually being there made him realize that Dex, who had been doing this for some time, had to know that. And yet he wouldn’t stop.

The other reason Cameron had joined the search was more selfish. He wanted Dex to actually acknowledge Cam’s presence on Atlantis, wanted Dex to realize Cam was more complex than just the second guy the IOA had picked to fill Sheppard’s shoes. Wanted Dex to stop looking at him like he thought Cam was a slightly annoying bug. Maybe if he could get the man to have a conversation, he could gently convince him to give up and go home.

That part of the Cameron’s mission goal was about as successful as they’d been at finding Sheppard.

Dex didn’t seem to mind Cameron’s presence, but neither did he act like he needed it. If anything, he seemed to view Cam as a packhorse to carry the heavy equipment. That was a bit irritating, especially because after one mission it was instantly apparent that Dex didn’t need anyone to carry anything for him ever. He also understood Sam’s warning against sparring with Dex, even if it hurt Cam’s pride. Dex was younger, lither, probably stronger and definitely faster than Cam. No wonder Emmagan hadn’t been at all worried for McKay’s safety with Dex at his side. Cameron also noticed that Dex wore dog tags intertwined in his dreads. At first, he thought they were issued to Dex and he just wore them unconventionally. But when he got close enough to read, he realized the name printed on the tags was John Sheppard’s. He had no idea where Dex had gotten them.

Cam had all these new observations about Dex that were just that, observations. Dex still wouldn’t talk to him beyond telling him to check the life sign detector or deciding it was time to go back. If Cam tried to talk to him while Dex examined the ground for some invisible sign of Sheppard, he more often got glared at than told to shut up.

It went on like that for a couple of months.

McKay’s leg healed, but Cameron refused to let him rejoin the search. Especially after seeing the conditions first hand, he didn’t want the guy that kept the city up and running out there. Dex was only human, after all, and the search was supposed to be about finding Sheppard not protecting McKay.

McKay threw a tantrum. For the first time, he was every bit as annoying as Cameron had expected him to be about everything.

Surprisingly, Dex took Cam’s side.

“He’s right,” Dex said, causing McKay’s mouth to drop open and gape at him. “You’ll get hurt again.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t shove me down a mountainside again,” snapped McKay. He jabbed a finger at Cameron. “You’d rather take –” Cam tilted his head, curious what insult McKay was going to come up with. Unfortunately, McKay remembered Cam was in the room, and settled on infusing the word “him” with as much disdain as possible.

“He doesn’t care if I get hurt,” Cam said, because it was probably true.

Dex didn’t deny it.

“He can handle himself,” Dex said.

“And I can’t?” McKay demanded, still red in the face.

“Rodney, you are needed in the city,” Emmagan tried. “If there is another attack.”

That pacified McKay a little. Dex took the opportunity to leave and Cam chased after him.

“Hey, you think I can handle myself?” Dex didn’t answer. “That’s like a compliment, right?”

Dex just kept walking, not even looking back.

~

It was a good thing Cameron insisted McKay remain in the city. While Dex and Cam were away, there was another projectile attack. Cam missed it – and was a little hurt if not too surprised that his absence hadn’t really mattered – and McKay’s presence was vital. He and Zelenka managed to hijack the projectiles’ navigation system before the things even penetrated the shield. They redirected the explosives back to their point of origin. It was a brilliant plan, even if McKay was obnoxiously proud of it. Cameron hoped it blasted the hell out of that Michael guy or some Wraith hive.

It made him feel more confident about leaving the city with Dex, though perhaps it should have bothered Cam that he was so unnecessary to the city. And it did kind of bother him that he was suddenly as dedicated if not more to the pointless search for Sheppard as he was to the rest of his duties.

Dex may have picked on his hesitancy. The man dropped by Cameron’s quarters the night before they were scheduled to go out again.

“Hey,” Cameron said, when he answered the door and found Dex standing in the hallway. “What’s up?” It was the first time he’d talked to Dex without having to seek him out first.

“Where we’re going tomorrow,” Dex said, without preamble. “It’s winter.”

“Okay,” Cam said. “So, you’re saying winter gear.”

Dex just looked at him.

“Winter gear,” Cameron repeated. “Thanks for the warning.”

“You don’t have to come,” Dex told him.

That was the first time Dex had actually expressed an opinion, verbally anyway.

“Oh, I’m coming,” Cam said. “I thought you said I could handle myself.” He was a little hurt by the rapid turnaround.

“You don’t have to,” Dex repeated, glancing down the hallway like he was about to leave.

Irritated, Cam straightened up and crossed his arms. “Tough,” he said, firmly. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Dex nodded, turned sideways, and strolled off without saying goodbye.

“Goodnight!” Cameron yelled at the man’s retreating back.

Dex hadn’t been kidding about it being winter and his warning to Cam might have been a genuine – maybe even friendly – act of compassion. Cameron had his doubts, especially after he showed up in the morning in heavy duty winter gear and Dex was only wearing his slightly heavier leather coat.

The moment Dex and Cam stepped out of the wormhole, snow blasted them so hard Cam couldn’t even see. It was bright white and cold and suddenly really hard to move. Cameron was instantly disoriented, unsure even which direction the ‘Gate was. His hands, preparing to pull the life sign detector out of its bag, fumbled inside their gloves and he dropped the thing. Cameron couldn’t see or hear Dex, the snow blowing fiercely into his face.

Then, someone grabbed Cam by the shoulder, hauling him forward. Cameron wasn’t entirely sure how, since it felt like he was standing in snow up to his thighs, but he managed to get moving. He stumbled more than walked, but Dex was pulling him and didn’t really give him a choice about stopping.

Dex shoved him one more time, and suddenly they were out of the snow. It was dark and Cam couldn’t see anything, but it was warmer and he could feel solid ground beneath his feet.

Finally, Cam’s eyes adjusted and realized they were in a cave, light peaking in from the entrance Dex must have found.

“Holy hell,” Cameron breathed. He dusted his clothes off with his hands, feeling the snow shake off. “You weren’t kidding about winter.”

Dex was dusting snow off the tops of his own boots. “Yeah,” he said. “You didn’t have to come.”

“Well, I’m here,” Cam muttered. He took a step and peered towards the entryway. All he could see was a pane of white. “Wow.”

“Where’s the life sign detector?” Dex asked. He was already down to business.  
  
Cameron automatically reached for his shoulder, then stopped. “I dropped it,” he said. Dex looked at him. “Out there.” He pointed to the outside.

The irritation stayed on Dex’s face.

“It’ll be right in front of the ‘Gate,” Cam said. “We can get it when…does this ever stop?”

“Yeah,” Dex said, finally. “It’ll stop.”

“Okay then.”

Dex was peering around the cave, abruptly starting walking further in. Cam whipped a flashlight off his vest, turned it on, and followed.

“You been here before?” he asked Dex’s back. “Or are you part Yeti?”

That made Dex look over his shoulder in annoyed confusion.

“Giant hairy snow beast,” Cam offered as explanation, which didn’t make Dex any happier.

Eventually, the reached a wider section of the cave and Dex stopped. He sat down against the wall and squinted up at Cameron and his flashlight.

“Just gotta wait,” Dex said. “Warmer in here.”

“Okay,” Cam agreed. He sat down next to Dex, allowing generous space between them. He swung McKay’s improvised DHD bag on to the floor next to their feet.

“I was here before,” Dex said, after a few minutes of silence.

“When the Wraith were chasing you?”

Dex looked at him sideways, then nodded. “Uninhabited,” he said. “Good place to stay.”

“Good?” echoed Cameron. “It always like this?”

“Mostly,” answered Dex. His lips stretched into a smirk. “Wraith don’t like snow, either.”

“Oh,” Cam said. “Good to know.”

Dex didn’t answer. Cam didn’t blame him. He wasn’t sure how to ask the guy about the seven years he’d spent being hunted. It seemed really trite and insensitive to reduce it to the fact that Dex had personal knowledge that the Wraith didn’t like snow.

Cameron was distractedly waving the flashlight around the opposite cave wall, not really paying attention to it.

“I’m not a huge fan of snow, myself,” he said, making a face. “I had a bad experience with crashing into some.”

“Stop,” Dex snapped, abruptly grabbing Cam’s arm so hard his grip hurt.

“Ow,” Cameron said, trying to pull free. “A simple ‘shut up’ will do, thanks.”

“No.” Dex didn’t release his hold on Cam, moving down to his wrist and forcibly pulling the flashlight from his fingers. “Stop the light.”

“What?” Cam asked. He let Dex take it from him, followed the beam on the opposite wall with his eyes. Dex was holding it steady, aimed at a strange red squiggle marked against the rock. “Hey, what’s that?”

“Someone’s been here,” Dex said. He rose, the light still aimed at the mark.

Cameron followed, slinging his bag back on his shoulder and adjusting his weapon.

“That say something?” he asked.

Dex didn’t answer, now scanning the rest of the wall with the light. There wasn’t anything else painted on the wall.

Cameron followed Dex deeper into the caves, watching him shine the light up and down the walls. They found a few more red squiggles, maybe primitive arrows. Dex went on, not saying a word. Cameron didn’t either, though he thought that if Sheppard had left those marks he would have used something more distinctive than a squiggle.

Dex stopped and stood still, forcing Cameron to halt. He listened intently, heard muffled noises and what sounded like voices.

“There’s people living here,” Cam said, softly.

In response, Dex nodded. Cameron read traces of disappointment on his face. Dex turned around to go back the way they’d come. Silently, Cam led the way.

They didn’t go all the way back, just enough that they could no longer hear the sounds of bustling activity below. Dex dropped to the floor again.

“No one was here before,” Dex said, flatly.

“Yeah, well,” Cameron replied. “Like you said, the Wraith don’t like snow.”  
  
Cam unhooked his bags and his gun, sliding down the wall next to Dex. His legs cracked audibly as he sat, and Dex glanced over. Cameron stretched his feet out, rubbing at his hips.

“You sound old,” Dex said, bluntly.

That made Cameron snort in amusement.

“That crash I mentioned?” he said. “In the snow? Got a couple dozen pieces of metal in my body from when they put me back together. They don’t take too kindly to sudden changes in temperature or humidity. Now I hate snow even more.”

Dex was still looking at him, expression curious rather than derogatory. Cameron took that as interest, since it was unlikely the man was ever going to actually ask.

“Anubis,” he said, “this Goa’uld bastard, tried to invade Earth. I was in a fighter jet that fought him off. We won, but I couldn’t stick the landing.” He leaned backwards, tried to crack his spine. “Since you asked, that’s how I ended up in the Stargate program. Save the planet, they’ll give you whatever you want.”

Dex was still looking at him.

“That was SG-1, though,” Cam admitted. “I’m not entirely sure what I did to get Atlantis.” All he’d really done, evidently, was share certain personality traits with Sheppard, except the IOA liked him more.

Now, Dex looked away. As he did so, Sheppard’s dog tags jingled against the backside of his head. Brazen, Cameron reached out and touched them. Dex glanced at him, but didn’t pull away. Cam ran his fingers over Sheppard’s name.

“Why do you wear these?” Cam asked, dropping his hand.

“So I can give ‘em back,” Dex answered.

Cam pursed his lips, put his hands flat on the gritty floor. Trapped in a cave during a blizzard was probably not the best time to start goading Dex, but at the same time, maybe it was. At least the guy couldn’t run away from him.

“You know,” he began, “I don’t know anything about what you believe on Sateda.”

Dex raised an eyebrow.

“But how I grew up, what I believe, about what happens after…” Cam paused, glanced at Dex’s face. The man was at least making eye contact and he didn’t look angry, yet. “I believe that John Sheppard is looking down on us thinking you are the most stubborn son of a bitch that ever lived in the Pegasus Galaxy and possibly any other. And that I’m an idiot who couldn’t order pizza effectively.”

Bizarrely, Dex’s eyes crinkled up.

Cam went on: “Here we are, trapped in a dark, dirty cave, hiding from a blizzard, spending time together even though you quite obviously think I’m ridiculous and I got a little tired of your attitude problem after the second day I met you.” Cameron sighed, leaned back against the wall. “I sure as hell hope he thinks it’s funny.”

Dex was wearing a tiny, sly smile.

“I don’t think you’re ridiculous,” he said, after a minute.

“You gonna stop?” asked Cam, in return.

Immediately, Dex shook his head. “Nope.”

Cam dipped his head. “Of course not.”

They were interrupted, then. In the darkness, Cameron didn’t see anything, only heard shuffling footsteps and then a bobbing light illuminated the cavern. A scrawny, bearded young man dressed in furs stood at the far end of the cave, holding a lantern.

~

Instinctively, Cam grabbed his P-90 and held it ready, even though the newcomer didn’t look like much a threat. He saw Dex’s hand move under his coat, grabbing his own gun.

“Hey there,” Cameron said, striving for warm. “We just came in out of the cold. Sorry if we’re trespassing or anything.”

The kid didn’t look scared or angry. “You have to turn your weapons in.”

“Um, what?” Cam asked. “I don’t think so.”

“You can stay,” the kid said. He held out one arm, open handed. “But you have to give your weapons up. They scare people. It’s the rules.”

“I think I’m going to stick with my original answer of no,” Cam snapped.

Young Fred Flintstone crossed his arms, lantern still dangling loosely. “I’m gonna call the militia.”

Dex jabbed Cameron in the side with his elbow.

“Fine,” Cam said, interpreting the blow as Dex wanting him to obey the kid. “We don’t want to fight the militia. You can have my gun. I’m just gonna unload it first.”

“Okay.”

Cameron not only took the magazine out, he disassembled the entire P-90 before handing it over. He felt silly. The kid looked to be about nineteen, even with a deceivingly thick beard.

“You have any guns?” the kid asked Dex.

Dex shook his head, spread his arms out like he didn’t totally have a small but incredibly cool gun stashed under his coat. And who knew how many other weapons, too.

“Okay,” the kid said, and departed with Cam’s disassembled P-90 in hand. Cam kept the ammunition.

“That was weird,” Cameron said, when he was gone. “Hell of a border guard, huh?”

“All they can do,” Dex said, shrugging. He rose, holstering his gun beneath his coat. “Storm might be over.”

“Okay.” Cam struggled to his feet. “I’m gonna have to make up something about losing that.” Dex looked at him blankly. “The IOA audits supply requisitions,” Cameron said. “They keep track of stuff like that.”

Dex shrugged again and Cameron started moving back towards the cave entrance. Cam was in the lead, Dex taking the rear. Maybe he thought the militia might actually show up and Cam wasn’t armed any more.

All the same, Cam could hear the sudden approach of voices in the caverns where they’d just been.  
  
“Where are they? Where’d they go?” from a new male voice and the kid insisting, “They were right here! I don’t know.”

Cameron stopped and turned around, hearing footsteps coming up on them. “Oh, great,” he began. “The militia I gave my gun to.”

But it wasn’t the militia.

It was one man. Dressed in furs like the kid and wearing a thick black and gray-tinged beard of his own, it was hard to see the man’s face. He was holding the disassembled pieces of Cameron’s P-90.

It was John Sheppard.

~

“Ronon?” Sheppard said, breathing the name more than speaking it. Then, “Jesus Christ!” in the same tone, just a little louder. He dropped Cam’s weapon and it clattered in pieces to the ground.

Cameron didn’t move, didn’t speak. He watched Dex take one step towards Sheppard, then envelop the man in a tight bear hug that nearly lifted Sheppard off the ground. For a moment, Sheppard held the embrace. Cam couldn’t see his face, could only see his posture collapse into Dex’s arms.

The kid they’d met fifteen minutes ago came around the corner, peering curiously at the scene. Cam caught his eye, gestured with his head to get lost. Looking bewildered, the kid obeyed and vanished from sight.

Shortly, Sheppard went rigid and pulled away, his arms grasping Dex by the shoulders.  
  
“What the hell are you doing here?” There was fury in his voice. “There’s no way off this planet! They don’t have a DHD!”

“It’s taken care of,” Cameron spoke up. He patted the portable DHD in the bag slung over his shoulder. “Courtesy of Dr. McKay.”

For the first time, Sheppard noticed that he was there. The man stared at him, obviously not recognizing who he was.

“Colonel Cameron Mitchell,” Cam offered, but Sheppard looked too shell-shocked to fully process that.

“Let’s go,” Dex said, planting one hand on Sheppard’s back. “Let’s go home.”

The storm wasn’t over yet. It was still raging if slightly less intense, but Cam could at least see something besides whiteness out of the cave entrance. The three men sat down just inside. Dex still had his hand on Sheppard’s body, like he was afraid if he stopped touching him, the guy would vanish.

Sheppard found Cam’s eyes. “McKay,” he repeated, looking around like he thought the scientist might be there.

“Isn’t here,” Cameron said, quickly. “He built us a DHD-to-go so we could get you home.”

“How long?” Sheppard asked, looking from Dex to Cam and back again. “I traded my watch after three months. How long has it been?”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Dex, shaking his head.

Since it looked like it really did matter to Sheppard, Cameron answered: “Almost two years,” he said. “Little over a year and a half.”

“Oh,” Sheppard breathed. He was still looking totally shell-shocked.

“You okay?” Cameron asked. “You hurt?”

Sheppard shook his head, shrugging at the same time. “No, no.”

“What is this place?” Dex asked, looking sharply down the cavern like he expected someone to come after Sheppard. “Who was holding you?”

“No one,” Sheppard said, voice suddenly bitter. “No one was holding me. It’s a settlement for survivors of the Hoffan plague and replicator attacks. They don’t have a DHD.”

“They hurt you?” Cam checked again. He got another head shake.

“What are you doing here?” Sheppard asked, maybe beginning to make the connection in his own head. “Just the two of you.”

“Looking for you,” Dex said, honestly. Cam knew he wasn’t going to lie.

“After two years?” Sheppard _had_ made the connection, because he was glaring at Dex.

“Hadn’t found you yet,” Dex retorted.

“You have some really good friends,” Cameron interjected. He’d let Sheppard get angry when they were back on Atlantis.

“Can’t believe the IOA let you,” Sheppard murmured.

“They didn’t.” Dex was reliably honest.

“What?” Sheppard asked.

“They called off the search, what, about a year and a half ago,” Cam told him. “Your people didn’t so much take no for an answer.”

Sheppard was still glaring and Dex tried to distract him. He reached up and unwound the dog tags chain from its place in his hair.

“Here,” he said, hooking the chain over Sheppard’s head and straightening the tags on top of Sheppard’s fur coat.

“You were wearing my dog tags in your hair?” Sheppard asked, suitably incredulous. “That’s actually…really creepy.”

“That’s what I thought,” Cam volunteered.

“Thought you’d want ‘em back,” Dex said, like it was a totally reasonable thing to do.

“I do,” Sheppard said. He was holding his tags in his fist, shaking his head.

“You hungry?” Cameron asked. Sheppard looked okay. He’d always been a lean guy, but his body was concealed in his caveman getup and it was hard to tell if he’d had enough to eat.

Sheppard didn’t answer, but Cameron fished an MRE out of his pack anyway and tossed it to him. Almost automatically, Sheppard caught it. He looked down at his hands.

“Didn’t think I’d ever see one of these again,” he said, mildly.

“Hell of a thing to miss,” Cam offered, going for gentle.

Sheppard stayed silent, just ripped open the MRE and dug in.

While Sheppard ate, Dex rose and walked off with the determined stride of a man needing to take a leak. He cast a glance at Cameron before vanishing out of sight, silently communicating that if Sheppard disappeared again while Dex was gone, Cameron was going to be in big trouble.

“I didn’t tell them to do that,” Sheppard said, the second Dex was out of earshot. “I didn’t tell them to look for me. I would have told them the exact opposite. Jesus.”

“I know,” Cameron said. “I’d plan on having a big I-told-you-so party when we get back, except I also told them you were dead.”

Sheppard paused in scarfing down the MRE, tilted his head.

“Risking their lives for a dead man,” Sheppard muttered, hotly. “That’s not better.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Cam said, clapping a hand on the man’s shoulder. “No one died. McKay got a little banged up, but he’s fine now. I told him he couldn’t come anymore.”

“He okay?” Sheppard asked.

“Fine.”

“Teyla?”

“She seemed to realize you wouldn’t like her being out here looking for you,” Cam said.

“I wouldn’t,” Sheppard agreed, shaking his head.

“She’s fine, her baby’s fine,” Cameron continued. “Your namesake is fine.”

“Atlantis?”

“Just how you left her,” Cam said. “More or less.” He’d mention their efforts to stick the burned out spire back on with krazy glue and Ancient construction beams later.

“You left SG-1?” Sheppard asked, subtly changing the subject.

Cam grinned. “Just keeping your shoes warm.”

Dex came back and peered out the cave opening.

“Snow’s stopped,” he said.

~

They’d never actually tried out McKay’s DHD contraption. It only had one go in it, enough juice for one try.

Cam and Dex waded out into the snow with the box. Sheppard refused to stay in the cave, watching as they climbed around and followed McKay’s directions for what amounted to a giant collection of electric cables and a laptop.

“Didn’t actually know you could dial the ‘Gate with extension cords,” Sheppard observed, mildly. But Cam could read the anxiety on his face, even with the beard. He began to feel some himself, a tingling in his chest.

“It’s McKay,” Dex said.

“Yeah,” Sheppard agreed. “Yeah.”

Cam opened the laptop dialing program, hit the appropriate keys. McKay had written a step by step instruction manual, in language so simple a kindergartner could have understood it. He was impressed by the lack of insults in it.

“Here we go,” he said.

The three men stood there and waited. Cam was almost holding his breath as each chevron lit up in turn and the wormhole engaged. He heard Dex exhale softly, watched Sheppard’s tight face as the ‘Gate bloomed.

Cameron transmitted his IDC to Atlantis, had it received and verified.

“Page Emmagan and Dr. McKay,” he said softly into his radio. “Have them waiting for us.”

“Why?” asked the tech on the other end.

“Because we’re bringing back Colonel John Sheppard,” Cam said. “Alive.”

“Let’s go,” Dex said, his arm across Sheppard’s back.

Together, they walked into the watery surface. Cameron followed them home.

~  
  
~The End~  
  
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